Meilo So's wild, swirling lines and unusual greens and oranges help create an otherworldly setting that matches the timeless folktale narrative. Observant children will laugh at Uriko's clothing, which resembles the melon from which she was born, and at the many character expressions not described in the text.

Picture-book audiences wiggle with mild fear when the author brings on the terrible oni. In well-timed passages, she eases the tension by highlighting tender moments between an old Japanese couple and their little melon girl, Uriko.

The pages almost turn by themselves as Uriko marches off in her tall wooden sandals to find the monsters who have kidnapped the town's babies. The energy comes to a climax in the slapstick scene in which Uriko and her friends outmaneuver the fat-bellied oni. Children love to linger at that double-page spread.

The only problematic aspect to this original telling of an old Japanese tale is in the foreign phrases that do not correspond to sounds American children understand. Some readers enjoy the unfamiliar phrases, but others are distracted by the sounds that make no sense to them.

So's lively illustrations can also be found in The Beauty of the Beast, a collection of poems, and in The Tale of the Heaven Tree.