The childless Chinese emperor at the center of Peng's Vase: A Chinese Folktale may call to mind Willy Wonka: concerned about his empire's future, he decides to look for someone to take over after he's gone. In this picture-book treatment, the classic tale is elegantly and economically retold by Angus and Michael Yuen-Killick, with lustrous illustrations by Paolo Proietti (Before We Sleep), and a twist worthy of O. Henry.
One day the elderly emperor gives a seed to every child at the royal gardens. He instructs each kid to plant the seed in a vessel and care for it, and then return the following year, when he will select one child to be his heir. Peng, a capable little gardener, plants his seed, tends it, and is surprised to find that only his doesn't grow. When it's time to return to the palace, Peng doesn't want to go, but his parents encourage him to tell the emperor the truth. With Peng and the other children gathered around, the emperor confesses that he deliberately distributed dormant seeds (the kids with thriving plants have cheated!), and he rewards Peng with the emperorship for cultivating "the flower of honesty."
Peng's Vase plays out against sumptuous settings aglow with garden colors like goldenrod, peach, and olive green. Proietti's gentle compositions soften the parable's message about the value of truthfulness, although there's also a second, subtler message that Roald Dahl would have supported: parents should sometimes let their kids fail. The experience may bring palatial rewards. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author