The Smeds are red and the Smoos are blue, and they each hate the other so violently that they tell their children never to have anything to do with the opposite race. Janet Smed happens to meet Bill Smoo one day quite by accident, and they enjoy playing with each other - until Smed grandad and Blue grandma arrive on the scene and cart their respective offspring away muttering dire threats of the consequences of their becoming friends. But they continue to meet in secret, and when they grow up, they fall in love and run away into the stratosphere using a space ship. Their families are appalled, and soon both Smeds and Smoos pile into another space ship and head for space too. They don't find Janet and Bill, but they do find lots of other alien planets with peculiar people on them, and gradually they begin to see that there are lots of interesting people in the world besides themselves. When they return to their planet, they find the runaways have come home and produced a purple baby! And they come together in joy at this wonderful event. This marvelous pictures book, full of Scheffler's remarkable planetary people is also full of Donaldson's super poetry, containing lots of made-up words that young children will love: 'Janet met Bill in the Wurpular Wood where the trockles grew tall and the glompoms smell good.' Brilliant, and a classic in the making!