"I'm Bored" and "Hello! Hello! Our brave new quickly expanding technological world has in it less human contact than ever before and less connection with - hence, less caring for - the natural world. Two new picture books explore this (oh, let's call it a) situation. Both contain an important message for young readers, but neither is burdened by it, as so many "message-y" books have been. "I'm Bored," by Michael Ian Black, stars a little girl and a potato. As the story begins, the girl tells us she is bored. A potato is the only thing in sight. But, as she says while throwing the potato up in the air, "what can you do with a potato?" The potato falls, strikes her on the head, then declares, "I'm bored!" The talking spud claims it's bored because it only has a little kid to play with. It would rather have a flamingo. Offended, the girl begins explaining to the potato why children are fun: they can play games, walk on their hands, pretend and so on. To each suggestion the potato replies with one word: "Boring." Once, its response ­varies: "Snoring." Unable to convince the potato of her own worth, the girl walks off in a huff. Enter a flamingo, static and probably plastic, minus a lawn, just as the potato is minus its couch. It won't matter, by the way, if children don't get this joke. The potato is excited to meet it, only to be told by the stiff pink bird: "I'm bored." The implication is clear: Those who cannot or choose not to move, to play, to think for themselves are always bored and are, in turn, boring to be with. Could this mean you? Your friends? Your parents? Black wisely avoids the temptation to point fingers, leaving it up to his young readers to make that call. Black is a comedian and actor ("Stella," "The State") when not writing children's books ("A Pig Parade Is a Terrible Idea"), and he tells his story in sprightly fashion. The illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi convincingly draws a child full of life, a potato full of - well, potatotude, and computer drawings that look just like good old-fashioned linocuts. Her smart cartoony artwork matches Black's perfect comic timing, making for a fun ride that should leave you amused, perhaps pensive, and no longer bored. Matthew Cordell's "Hello! Hello!" makes a much more direct appeal for getting back to basics. In fact, the statement is made graphically, right away, on the book jacket, where an adorably geeky little redhead is seen plunking her cellphone and laptop behind as she reaches for a leaf floating in on a breeze. The text is all in the title as well: the word "Hello" is repeated throughout in various combinations, while the story is told entirely in the art. That art is gloriously old-style, hand-drawn in ink with a bamboo pen. The color is applied with old-fashioned watercolor (harder to learn than Photoshop!) while the type is quite obviously computer-made, in that rigid fractured font you see on digital clocks everywhere. The contrast of hand-drawn and machine-issued is cleverly sustained through the first half of the book, where the little girl lives in a dull, indoor world. In a prologue we see her playing in her bedroom with a standard array of techno-toys: Game Boy, laptop, cellphone, TV. Tired of these, she wanders through the house and there - though she continually shouts "Hello!" - she can get the attention neither of her parents nor of her little brother. All of them, absorbed in their different technologies, would probably rather text her than talk to her face to face. The air in this drab atmosphere is constantly beeping, tapping, thrumming and humming, until the moment when a fresh breeze blows open the door and in drifts a leaf to lure her outside. At this point, hand-lettering joins hand-drawing in a wild escapade in the natural world. Outside, the girl discovers an Eden full of welcoming landscapes and friendly beasts. It's an unreal view of the world (no "Nature red in tooth and claw" out here), but it's clearly shown that this is the world enhanced by the mind of a child with a great imagination. Fish and whales soar with butterflies. Buffalo and giraffe, lions and gazelles, a dog and a chicken run alongside dinosaurs through a flowery field. An octopus gallops in the grass. All are shouting "Hello! Hello!" to the ecstatic child, who leads them along on horseback. Then, in one dramatic double-page spread, the whole group is brought to a screeching halt by the ring of a cellphone in the girl's pocket. It's her parents calling, just waking up to the fact that their daughter is gone, and worried to death. Across an empty page she runs home, back to the gray interior, where Mom and Dad - torn away from their machines - greet her with an irritated "hello?" in computerized font. Enthusiastically she greets them back in hand-drawn "Hello's!" while, at the same time, and in handy fashion, she trades each of them a thing she has found outside - a leaf, a flower, a ladybug - for the machines to which they have been glued. The final spread has the whole family outdoors, holding hands. A tree sheds its bright fall leaves. A breeze blows the leaves toward the humans in a beckoning fashion. The parents are still looking a little conformist-robotic and slightly reluctant to break away from their virtual reality, but the two children - barefoot - are delightedly wiggling their bare toes in the dirt. Children's books that begin their lives with the intent to convey an important message generally fall flat and fail to capture anyone's fancy. These two succeed because they have appealing characters in situations that intrigue us. While the message was perhaps the main reason for baking, it comes along not as the cake itself, but as the icing. David Small has illustrated many children's books, including "So You Want to Be President?," a Caldecott medalist. He is also the author of a memoir, "Stitches."