Review by Booklist Review
Awakened in the night, a girl and her younger brother join their parents for a walk. This is no stroll around the backyard, but a hike with a purpose, which is revealed only at the story's end. The family walks through their village and into the countryside. They watch a train cross a viaduct in the distance, leaving silence in its wake. After passing through a forest, they pause to rest and look at the full moon, reflected in a lake. They climb a rocky hillside to the top and sit on a boulder, looking eastward. The edge of the sky begins to glow, and then . . . sunrise! The limited use of color (deep, soft shades of blue and gray, with black-and-white elements) until the closing scenes makes the dawn even more dramatic. From the chirping of crickets to the scent of grass to the snap of dead branches as the family walks through the forest, the text uses sensory details effectively to help listeners imagine the experience. Beautifully composed and often striking, the illustrations were drawn in pencil, painted with watercolors, and completed digitally. This rewarding picture book, first published in France, invites children to experience a memorable encounter with the natural world.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A pale-skinned family of four--two parents and two children--takes a blissful summer night walk into the countryside that gives way to a breathless conclusion in this picture book by Dorléans. Narrated by one of the children, the prose shines with sensory acuity as the family leaves a village behind them with a particular location in mind. "We left the road, and the path/ climbed gently out of the valley./ A train sliced through the darkness," one verso page reads as the family overlooks a landscape of fastidiously needled trees against a star-studded sky. Navy washes overlay graphite pencil and digital illustrations, with fine-lined detail so startlingly observed that readers will feel immersed in each expansive spread. Suspense builds as sparse beams of light illuminate the darkness page by page and each spread carries the family forward through the night. A graceful, perfectly paced appreciation of nature. Ages 3--7. (Apr.)
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Review by Horn Book Review
Awakened by their mother's voice and a sliver of light through their bedroom door, two children sleepily dress so they can "get there on time." Where they're going is a mystery for readers, but the family of four ventures eagerly into the dark within the immersive full-bleed double-page spreads. Some stark, some diffuse, and some barely visible white lights pierce the blue-hued night world as the family members make their way past darkened homes and a brightly lit hotel toward a star-encrusted horizon. Beyond the town, they see curled-up cows and a faraway train "slic[ing] through the darkness." The poetic, evocative text immerses readers in a nocturnal world; as the family finds its way through the woods, for example, "the bark smelled comforting." With urgency, yet in awe, the family stops to rendezvous with the moon's reflection upon the surface of a hidden pond and to lie back and gaze in wonder at the night sky. Painstaking line and graphite-pencil shading create depth and dimension for the various tree-lined, rocky, and mountainous terrains depicted along the way. At long last, the four gather atop a boulder to witness the break of dawn -- that's where we were going. This hushed, intimate picture book creates a respite from the demands of the daytime world and pulls readers into a moment of pure wonder and peace. Grace McKinney May/June 2021 p.106(c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Roused from sleep, two siblings head out into the night, walking in darkness with their parents to an undisclosed destination. "Let's go, so we get there on time," their mother urges. The family walks enshrouded in blue night, through the "sleeping village," past a big hotel lit up "like a chandelier," into cow-dotted countryside, finally reaching thick woods. Watercolor-and--graphite pencil illustrations depict an enveloping nocturnal world through saturations of indigo. Young readers' hearts will quicken, feeling embraced by night made real with breathtaking, full-bleed washes of blue that stretch across double-page spreads. This wondrous darkness gleams with reassuring lights (from lamps, windows, flashlights, glinting stars, a woozy moon) while meticulous pencil work provides specificity. A sweater's cables claim readers' attention, as do blades of grass, pine needles, fronds of fern, and a lacework of leaves in a magical night sky perforated by stars. Equally evocative sentences (in taut translations from French) appear in clear, white lettering, engaging the senses: "We threaded through the whispering forest. The earth was damp, the bark smelled comforting." Keeping pace with this family, readers wonder where they're headed and why they must start to hurry near the book's conclusion. Urgency, exhilaration, and anticipation make the walk's conclusion, a luminous, lemony daybreak, all the more powerful. All family members have pale skin and dark hair. A gift--here night isn't scary; the unknown is exhilarating and the ending sunny and clear. (Picture book. 4-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
