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Summary
Summary
A Publishers Weekly Best Picture Book of 2020
A Kirkus Best Book of 2020
A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book of 2020
Best Illustrator Award, 2021 Northern Lights Book Awards
Poetic and sparse, a bedtime story told by the elements.
Gentle and lyrical, Every Color of Light is a bedtime story told by the elements.
Every Color of Light opens on a lush, green forest in the rain. Illustrated by the masterful Ryoji Arai, the calm is shattered when the wind picks up and lightning cuts the sky. Yet out of this turbulence, the day blooms bright, the flowers open, and raindrops roll and drip down to the forest floor. The sun sets. The moon rises, and in a pool of water we see its reflection. We go to sleep with the forest, sinking into the pool, into the calm reflection of the moon. Harmonizing our human experience to the natural world, Arai invites the reader to hold imaginative space for our oneness with the natural world.
Author Notes
Ryôji Arai was born in Yamagata, Japan, in 1956. He has an illustrative style all of his own: bold, mischievous and unpredictable. Arai studied art at Nippon University. His art is at once genuine and truly poetic, encouraging children to paint and to tell their own stories. He took the Japanese picture-book world by storm in the 1990s. Since then, he has one multiple awards, including the international Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2005.
David Boyd is Assistant Professor of Japanese at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His translations have appeared in Monkey Business International, Granta, and Words Without Borders , among other publications.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In a strong translation by Boyd, a Japanese team captures the magic of a summer rainstorm. Working in thick, dense strokes, Arai (What What What?) creates a lake surrounded by foliage whose colors range from spring green to spruce blue. Silver streaks show the first drops: "Look, it's raining." The rain falls harder ("Wetter/ And wetter"), and the greenery, the late poet Osada observes, changes: "The blues darken/ And so do the greens." Wind whips, leaves fly, rain slashes sideways; bolts of lightning flash across the spreads amid sodden blossoms; and thunder follows, "Cracking/ Crashing." After a few final flashes in the distance, the sky clears, and the storm is shown to have been ephemeral: "Look, no more rain." The sun sets, dusk falls, the stars emerge ("Shining,/ They share their stories"). By employing landscapes in lieu of human or animal characters, Osada and Arai ask readers to look--really look--at the rain, the way the changing weather transforms the visible spectrum, and the magnificence of the night sky, phenomena all too often unseen in a hurry-up world. The result is a story that sharpens the senses and quiets the soul. Ages 4--up. (June)
Horn Book Review
Poetic phrases and vibrant mixed-media illustrations capture the intensity of a thunderstorm across a natural landscape. The book begins with a small image of the landscape in one corner. "Look, it's raining," reads the text, encouraging a child viewer to begin focusing in on the image closely to spot the streaks of rain. Attention is rewarded when the next picture expands to fill both pages as the rain begins to fall -- "Wetter / And wetter / The blues darken / And so do the greens" -- again drawing the viewer to notice the changes, with lines across the intense blues and greens showing the driving rain. The wind's power is shown on the next pages with a much less orderly picture as the lines begin going sideways as well as vertically, and the style becomes more impressionistic and wild. A spare text economically conveys what's happening: "Cracking / Crashing / Boom / Bah-bah-BOOM!" Light then fills the pages once the storm has passed, and one spread focuses on the dripping raindrops with sparkles and iridescent colors inside. As the day fades, the pages become golden, and the focus begins to shift to the expansive night sky, concluding with another tiny picture in the corner, with the word asleep fading away. It's rare for a picture book to so vividly command attention without any characters, but the pictures are so stunning that a child who has dwelt in them will likely notice much more the next time they are observing nature, especially during a terrifying, thrilling thunderstorm. Susan Dove Lempke September/October 2020 p.69(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
This gorgeous, contemplative read showcases the many colors of nature as it follows stormy day into calm, starry night. Translated from Japanese, the book opens with a simple declaration that children can identify with: "Look, it's raining." The spreads that follow feature one short sentence per page that, in simple terms, describes the changing weather, colors, and light as a storm passes through and night falls. Onomatopoeic words ("Whoosh, swish, sssh") provide plenty of opportunity for adult readers to both dramatize and soothe. On each page, minimal text appears beneath Arai's large, vivid paintings, with thick, layered applications of saturated colors, each of which impart a sense of the outdoors as vast and dynamic and allow a stunning variety of colors to shine. Though the day-to-night narrative progression suggests a bedtime story, this is more thoughtful and sophisticated than the usual bedtime fare. Babies and small children will likely enjoy poring over the engrossing, deceptively simple artwork and hearing the calming words, and adults may savor the introspective, thought-provoking combination of those elements.
Kirkus Review
There is nary a human in this song of praise to the natural world. This Japanese import opens on a stretch of verdant land and, in the distance, mountaintops. Never leaving this view, author and illustrator explore the effects of the elements on this patch of land and the varied colors that result. The rain falls so hard that it slants. Thunder roars and lightning flashes. When the storm ends, the air clears, and colors shimmer. When evening comes, the moon appears. Birds return, stars sparkle, and the text bids goodnight to the "Spirit of Rain" in the sky. Osada's sensory text is written in a satisfyingly economical and precise manner: "Setting, the light turns everything golden. Stilling, the water shines silver." Sprinkled throughout the text is punchy, onomatopoeic language, such as "boom, bah-bah-BOOM!" for thunder. Arai's lush, atmospheric landscape art is remarkably textured, with what appear to be scratches in the art for the driving rain. Appropriately, the palette is the star of the show; readers see every mood of Mother Nature and her corresponding colors: all shades of green imaginable; warm pastel shades of light filling the sky; vivid, golden, post-rain hues. There's a subtle moment of whimsy when "stars…share their stories," and readers see small shapes in the night sky (a squirrel, a saxophone). Colors fade with the children listening: "We're all / falling / … / soundly / … / asleep…." Simply spectacular. (Picture book. 5-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
