Jill Lorenzini

As the sun sets and a full moon rises, three children venture outside, ostensibly to find their runaway dog but mostly to frolic in the nocturnal world beyond their gate. Author Dianne White and illustrator Felicita Sala’s Dark on Light is lyrical, charming and wonderful. 

White’s text is more like a poem than a straightforward story. In lieu of lengthy descriptions, she creates a vivid world through concise statements that form rhymed couplets: “Silent the owl. Still the night. / Dark the meadow beneath its flight.” Once every four lines, the couplets resolve by using the book’s title as a refrain. This repetition, along with the text’s soothing, cohesive meter, lends Dark on Light the mood of a calming lullaby. It calls to mind the way we feel compelled to whisper among shadows, to hush our voices as we explore the realm of nighttime. It’s magical and awe-inducing, but never eerie or foreboding. 

Sala’s illustrations do much of the narrative work. We see the children run through flowery fields, traipse through a forest, turn cartwheels in the grass and eventually find their dog and make their way home to bed. Sala’s artwork has a classical look, with soft shapes and muted hues that are familiar, joyful and full of life. And while night is often a source of fear for children, Sala’s dark forest is beautiful and deep, populated with gentle, curious creatures, including a doe and her fawn, a fox and a squirrel nestled in the hollow of a tree. Enchanting details—the Canis Major constellation highlighted in the starry sky, a teddy bear peeking out from under a bed—give readers a further sense of security. This is a safe book for imagination and dreams. 

Everything about Dark on Light makes it perfect for cozy time or bedtime. Actually, everything about Dark on Light makes it just about perfect. 

In books, we can find kinship, solidarity and the expression of emotions we may hesitate to share with other people. Author Sara Greenwood draws on personal experience in My Brother Is Away, a compassionate depiction of a girl working through the complex emotions she feels about her brother, who is in prison.  

In straightforward and descriptive first-person narration, the girl remembers the fun times she shared with her brother, which now “feel like a faraway dream,” and deals with questions and jibes from her peers. Greenwood perfectly captures the girl’s open, expressive thoughts, but many concrete details are left vague, especially those involving the brother’s conviction. Instead, the author delves deeper into the girl’s conflicting feelings: “Why did my brother do that awful thing?” the girl wonders. “I want to shout at him, “This is all your fault!”” Greenwood nimbly avoids crafting a syrupy panacea while validating the girl’s recollections of happy, loving memories of her brother.

Artist Luisa Uribe’s illustrations reflect the girl’s fluid emotions with exceptional skill, understanding and sensitivity. Scenes set in the present use subdued, natural hues—especially grays, blues and browns—to depict falling leaves and an autumnal chill that convey how deeply the girl misses her brother as she navigates daily life without him. In contrast, flashbacks are bright and cheery, with an occasionally fantastical feel. 

In one scene, the girl storms through her house in fury and Uribe tilts the room around her. The floor slopes subtly upward across the spread, while doors and art on the wall slant to the right, off-kilter. Toward the end of the book, when the girl nervously waits to see her brother in prison, Uribe places her in the center of an otherwise white, empty page; on the opposite page is the closed door her brother will walk through. Throughout, Uribe incorporates small, everyday details—a laundry hamper with a lid slightly ajar in the brother’s empty bedroom, the girl’s red eyeglasses and matching red sneakers—which give a sense of softness and safety. 

In an author’s note, Greenwood professes her hope that “this book feels like a friend” to children with incarcerated loved ones. “I want you to know you aren’t alone,” she writes. My Brother Is Away is not a practical guidebook for families with an incarcerated family member, nor does it explain the details of unlawful acts, the justice system or imprisonment and release. It simply reminds readers that, for every person who is incarcerated, there is also a family and a community whose lives have also been changed—and it reaches out with comfort and acceptance to the littlest ones who are witnessing and living those stories.

Eily and her father live by the sea, not far from the mysterious island of Lisnashee, home to the fairy folk known as the Good People. Eily’s father ventures annually to the island to gather fog, which has magical properties. It’s a dangerous job, but the village folk rely on the fog water for charms, cures and protection, particularly from the Good People. But this year, Papa accidentally makes the trip to Lisnashee without his charm meant to ward off fairy spells, leaving Eily with her own job to do.

Marianne McShane’s text in The Fog Catcher’s Daughter feels like it’s been passed down through generations, a folk legend whispered in hushed tones to little ones leaning forward to listen. Her tale is filled with rich sensory descriptions. When she writes that “a cold wind shivered across the sand,” you’ll tremble right along with Eily. Young readers are sure to wonder, as I did, whether The Fog Catcher’s Daughter is based on a true story. An author’s note gives a glimpse into the Irish folklore that underpins the tale, as well as the real-life Moroccan practice of fog catching that inspired McShane to create it.

Illustrator Alan Marks’ watercolor art is so ethereal and captivating, you’ll want to hang it on the wall. Windswept grasses and tumbling waves create a landscape that seems both fantastical and utterly real. Fog creeps around corners, rises from the ground and blows across the water, becoming a character every bit as significant as Eily herself. At times, Marks depicts the Good People as mere wisps of mist and other times as distinct, ghostly figures, perfectly capturing their ambiguous, tempestuous nature. A soft, warm-toned hearth scene as well as the lush greens of spreads depicting Eily’s family’s fields offer a reassuring and welcoming contrast to the wild blues and grays of Lisnashee. You’ll especially want to linger on a wondrous two-page spread of the village apothecary shop and its shelves packed with plants, shells, stones and bottles. 

Though it contains slightly spooky themes, The Fog Catcher’s Daughter doesn’t haunt so much as enchant.