An imaginative picture book by Iwona Chmielewska, who brings together everyday surroundings, personal experience, and abstract ideas to create vivid, three-dimensional flights of fancy. The story is wonderfully simple and concise, yet brimming with delight. Oh no! Something terrible has happened. While ironing and daydreaming for just a moment, a big scorch mark appears on mom's most treasured tablecloth. ■ This is the first book in the imaginative picture book series by Polish-born, Korea-based artist Iwona Chmielewska. While ironing and lost in thought, a child accidentally burns a mark onto the tablecloth—and the ensuing worry and search for a solution is captured in spare, simple illustrations. ■ Grandma embroidered it, and mom treasures it above all else—but now there's an iron-shaped burn mark on the tablecloth. What should I do? Is there any way to fix this? The desperate wish to erase the mark sends the imagination racing, spinning the triangular scorch mark into all sorts of scenarios... Like a rocket falling from the sky, this sudden disaster feels like something no one—no matter how strong—could stand against. Even the most expensive detergent can't remove it, and neither the owl's wise advice nor tips found on the internet do any good. Even praying doesn't help. No matter how hard you think, no clever solution comes to mind. Should I blame my little brother? Or grandpa? Maybe I should just hide somewhere no one can find me—deep underground, or all the way to the edge of the world. But there's nowhere left to run, and it's painfully clear whose fault it is. The only thing left to do is confess and ask for forgiveness. Finally, mom sees the tablecloth. And then she heats up the iron... ■ As the child's worries, doubts, and excuses shift and change, so does the triangular iron mark. A falling rocket bomb becomes the upside-down triangular torso of a strong man, then a detergent bottle, then a computer mouse, then a church building, then grandpa's pipe, then a fenced-in birdcage, then mom's eyes... Going far beyond simple association, the book unfolds a richly three-dimensional imagination that stages entire scenes—all through spare sentences and remarkably simple illustrations. Some scenes, like the one where the child offers flowers to ask forgiveness, only click into place after several readings. Though the story is simple, within it unfolds an entire world: a chair right in front of you, a window with the wind blowing through, a shovel digging deep into the earth. These scenarios range from the everyday—like searching the internet or laundry detergent—to the abstract, like imagining wrongdoing exposed under a bright lamp, to the extraordinary, like escaping by boat. This is what makes the imagination in We Have a Problem! so special: association, metaphor, and abstract thought branching out in every direction. And one more thing—the mom who sweeps away all these worries and troubles in an instant is truly wonderful. ■ There are countless stories hidden within everyday life. Iwona Chmielewska's imaginative picture books explore all of these stories through layers of association and metaphor, creating vivid scenes with restrained lines and colors in wonderfully simple picture books—continuing on into the second and third volumes of the series.