SOLVED. Children's Fantasy Picture book. About a boy out exploring the "wide world". He finds a pencil sharpener shaped like a globe and a giant's hairnet. Read in the early 90s. [s]

[Guywithnohead]

A picture book I read in the early 1990s. It's about a boy who decides to go out and see the "big wide world" or something similar. He leaves his house and just walks for a while, and meets a bunch of different people, and picks up several random objects. The only ones I remember are a pencil sharpener shaped like a globe (like, with continents and everything) and a big net that turns out to be a giant's hairnet. The giant gets mad at him, but he still steals it. At one point he goes out in a meadow with a girl he meets and picks forget-me-nots. In the second half of the story, he gives away the things he found to other people he meets; the globe and the hairnet he gives to an explorer in a hot air balloon. He asks the explorer "which way to the big wide world?" but the explorer is too busy freaking out over the apparent fact that there's a giant hole in the Earth where the North Pole should be (the globe is a pencil sharpener) and flies off to investigate it. The kid gets home at the end of the story saying, "Well, I saw a lot of things, but I still haven't seen the big wide world!" The only thing he has still is a forget-me-not he picked with the girl; the story ends with a picture of it. Anybody know the title? Thanks!

[Kris]

Guywithnohead, can you describe the illustrations - e.g., simple or detailed, realistic or cartoon-like, painted watercolors or bold graphics, bright or dark colors, black & white? Do they remind you of a similar illustrator or picture book author?

[Guywithnohead]

The illustrations were in color, painted I imagine, not real cartoony but not extremely realistic either, I think with black lines around things? Mercer Mayer-y, Bill Peet-ish? I don't want to commit to anything real specific; I was something like four years old at the time, so my memory for details is unreliable.

[Kris]

Illustrators mentioned: Mercer Mayer and Bill Peet

[Ayshe]

Willie in the Big World: An Adventure with Numbers maybe?

[Guywithnohead]

Ayshe wrote: "Willie in the Big World: An Adventure with Numbers maybe?"

THAT'S IT!!! THANK YOU! At the tender age of four, I did NOT pick up on the number theme.

[Guywithnohead]

Solved! Thank you, Ayshe! It's Willie in the Big World: An Adventure with Numbers, by Sven Nordqvist.