Mystery Bottle

The titular item, postmarked Tehran, arrives in Brooklyn at the home of a seven-year-old boy. Suddenly, a wind whooshes out of the bottle, and sweeps the boy narrator ""out of the city... and across the sea"" to Iran, the home of his grandfather, Baba Borzorg. The two enjoy ""tea with cubes of sugar and asked lots of questions."" The duo then cycles to the top of Tehran's tallest mountain, where they fill the bottle with air again. ""When you want another cup of tea, just open the bottle, and the wind will bring you to me,"" says Baba Borzorg, giving the boy a hug and blowing him back home to Brooklyn. This whimsical story takes on a deeper meaning through an author bio on the dust jacket: The grandfather is based on Balouch's father-in-law, who sent his son, then a boy, out of Tehran just before the 1978 revolution. But even if children do not grasp the story's history, they'll want to linger on Balouch's imaginative cut-paper illustrations. English-language and Arabic maps serve as a kind of canvas for her compositions; the cartographic features add an intriguing texture while also underscoring the geographic sweep of the action. Handwritten notes amplify the setting (e.g., on one spread, arrows point out pomegranates, dolmas-stuffed grape leaves-and a samovar). Although grandson and grandfather live far from one another, readers will understand that the bond between the generations conquers any distance. Ages 4-8.