Book excerpt: Winner of the 2004 Prix Saint-Exup�ry, an award given yearly to the best illustrated picture book in France by the family of The Little Prince author, Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry . In the big gray city, Lived a little boy who never played... With A Blue So Blue, Jean-Fran�ois Dumont has created an outstanding picture book that will dazzle the eye, stir the imagination, and warm the heart. The exquisitely written tale whisks children off of a fantastic journey across land and sea. Every page features breathtaking paintings, rich in color and detail. It is simply a magical tour de force of illustration and storytelling. The adventure begins with a little boy's marvelous dream of a perfect blue, a blue both soft and strong, a blue so blue you want to curl up inside it. Armed with a paintbrush, he travels the globe in search of this special color--from a famous art gallery to a mid-Atlantic fishing boat, from a remote blues club in the Mississippi Delta to a sun-drenched desert with a purple sky--only to realize that what he was looking for was right in his very own home after all.