When Liling moves from her home in the mountains of China to the big city, her parents cannot afford to send her to school, and she spends her days with her mother, wishing she had a friend--until she sees a girl in a yellow coat, who lives in the next building, comes from a different mountain, and is happy to be Liling's friend.

Two is not a lot of pennies, but it is a lot of smelly skunks. Ten is not a lot of popcorn pieces, but it is a lot of chomping dinosaurs. One thousand is not a lot of grains of sand, but it is a lot of hot air balloons!

"Her name is Purple, and she is the only dash of color in William's gray yard. She asks his name, and when he answers 'Um, well ...,' she dubs him Umwell the Gray, then leads him on an exploration of a world that is always new and beautiful to eyes that can see. This story is a celebration of the ever-present newness and change around and within us. Because newness is more readily discernible in nature than in human lives, the story relies on Purple's...