Zot lives in a world where there is no colour. He and the other inhabitants are rather depressed because of this, and Zot finds comfort in sitting on his hill and looking down on the colourful earth below. Deciding to see all this colour for himself, he takes off in his space ship and arrives after a long journey. Being an alien, Zot has certain magic powers, and with his suitcase wide open, he is able to call forth the colours into it through his own language. And the colours pour forth - red, green, blue, yellow, every one - and disappear into the suitcase. This leaves the earth as grey and uninteresting as his own planet, but just as Zot is about to leave with his suitcase full of colour, he sees a little boy with an orange balloon. Coveting the orange as well, he calls it to him, leaving the little boy bereft. Seeing the lad's sadness, Zot has a moment of conscience and realises that he has stolen something precious, and it is wrong.: 'Carefully, gently, he returned all the beautiful colours to the boy's world.' And then the boy is generous too and gives Zot his orange balloon. Zot is happy with his one glowing colour, and he returns to his own planet to make his fellow aliens happy too. The illustrations really make this story zing. The oddly shaped aliens covered in little squares of grey and brown, the colours as they fly to and fro in squares and circles and shapes of all sorts - all come together to produce a memorable picture book with a message that is given without seeming to be a message at all. Super!