Pot-San the teapot and his various tabletop friends - Teacup, Spoon, Miss Salt, and others - enjoy a variety of adventures in the four short stories contained in this picture-book. In The New Teacup, our hero's worries about the newcomer to the table prove unfounded, while in The Flying Saucer, Pot-San's dream about a UFO is mirrored by the arrival at the table of Cheese Cake. The Flying Tray sees the table companions embarking on a dangerous game involving flight, while Miss Salt explores the arrival of another newcomer in the group...

Although author/illustrator Satoshi Kitamura is Japanese, and currently lives in Japan, it seems that many of his picture-books were first published in the UK, where he lived for many years. Pot-San's Tabletop Tales falls into that category, and was released by the London-based Andersen Press in 2012. The stories here have a gentle, quirky sense of humor, and will appeal to young children who enjoy tales about the adventures of anthropomorphic objects - think nursery rhymes about spoons, and so on. The watercolor artwork captures the humor of the text, and has an amusing, cartoon-like style that is very appealing. ( )