All I See

The gradual friendship between a shy boy named Charlie and Gregory, a paint-splattered artist, is handsomely illustrated by newcomer Catalanotto in watercolors that are full of shadows and brilliant patches of light. Although both Charlie and Gregory look across the same shimmering blue-green lake, Gregory, the artist, paints only whales because, he says, ``It is all I see.'' Charlie, the apprentice, paints ``everything he sees, there on the lake,'' and knows that ``something is waiting for him, waiting to be seen and to be painted.'' The sunlight etching blades of lemon-colored grass or caressing the lake at sunset is as beautiful as the deceptively simple story in which Rylant investigates the complicated difference for the artist between versimilitude and vision. A Richard Jackson Book. Ages 5-7. (September)