First published in the United States in 2003, Taiwanese import On My Way to Buy Eggs is a Hsin Yi Picture Book Award winner (this was award created to support local Taiwanese picture book authors and illustrators). At a glance, there is something rather unassuming about the book, whose cover is the color of a brown lunch, or better yet, grocery bag. Flipping through the construction paper weight pages, one sees similarly mute colors. Still, there is something about the use of shape, shadow and delicate lines of this story that makes it visually appealing. The typeface, although sans serif, is quite elegant in its variation in weight and reminiscent of Asian calligraphy. The end pages are detailed with Taiwanese neighborhood facades.

The story itself follows a young girl, Shau-yu, on her trip to the neighborhood store to purchase eggs for her father. It is a story both universal and culturally revealing. Shau-yu does many things that children do; she plays and pretends. She follows a cat’s shadow while it walks on the roof. She peeks in a blue marble and the world turns blue. She pretends to be her mother when she talks to the shopkeeper. And yet there are details that reveal much about Taiwanese culture. For instance, the blue color of the marble is compared to the color of cats’ eyes. Assuming that most Taiwanese have brown eyes, this is an interesting analogy. Also, Shau-yu mentions to the shopkeeper that she needs eggs for making fried rice, which is certainly a more typical Taiwanese use for eggs. At the end of the story, there is a note from the American publisher, explaining the significance of traditional neighborhood stores in Taiwanese culture.

While the combination of universal and Taiwanese makes this book an excellent choice for introducing younger children to another culture, it is ultimately the depiction of a child’s imagination that makes this story so appealing. In point of fact, judges of the Hsin Yi Picture Book Awards believed that this book would “make children feel there is endless happiness, humor and warmth in their everyday lives.” Though at first its muted colors may not seem to indicate this, On My Way to Buy Eggs does indeed bring warmth and humor to a topic that otherwise would be rather ordinary, even mundane.