I haven't read the first book in the Miyuki series, so I wasn't sure what to expect from this one. It's a bit trippy, with illustrations that make me think of Alice in Wonderland.

Miyuki finds an unopened flower on the first day of spring and sets about finding the purest water for it so it will open. She spends all day running around trying to find this water, and by the end of the day, she still hasn't succeeded. The next morning, the flower still hasn't opened, and Miyuki is sad. But her grandfather tells her she needs to be patient, so they just sit together and watch and wait, enjoying the second day of spring as they wait for the flower to open.

Even though the illustrations are a bit weird and fanciful, I quite like them. The characters appear to be quite tiny, able to fit inside flowers, and other creatures (like toads and rabbits) are huge. The geometric patterns and soft colours make the whole aesthetic kind of stylized, but also magical. (I first encountered this illustrator's work in Stéphanie Demasse-Pottier's My Island. I really liked the pictures in that one, too, even if they didn't make a lot of sense. I think that weird, distorted vision of reality is what makes them special, though.)

I'm not sure if the message about being patient really comes through clearly, but the book is lovely to look at and it's nice to see a story about patience that isn't too preachy.