The Day the Sun Did Not Rise and Shine

What would happen if the sun never came up again? One night, flying while half asleep, Owl takes the wrong turn on the way to his home. Without noticing, he flies into an attic. There, he awaits the dawn of the day, but the sun does not rise. Owl begins to seriously worry. How can the world cope without the sun? What Owl doesn’t see–but the viewer does– is that the sun outside is rising and is peeping through the attic’s window. Only when the light hits a mirror, does Owl know that everything is all right.

K-Gr 2—At the end of a long night of flying, a drowsy little owl accidentally walks into an attic instead of his own bed. When he wakes up, he is puzzled by the fact that it is still dark. He becomes concerned that the sun has forgotten to wake up. Owl sees a mirror surrounded by sun rays glinting, and he confuses it with the sun. He tries in various ways to rouse it. He carries a globe to the mirror hoping to convince it the world needs the sun, and he throws a party so the sun will want to shine again. Suddenly he realizes the attic is becoming lighter. The sun has risen and is shining through the window. Owl realizes his mistake, and at last he goes to his own bed and gets a good day's sleep. This was originally published in the Netherlands, and the translation is a bit awkward at times, with mixed tenses: "The forest looked different than he remembered. Is that because it is still dark?" Owl is endearing as he frets over the predicament but soldiers on with pluck. The story lacks a certain logic, though. The crowded attic bears absolutely no resemblance to the forest, and it strains credulity that he would not realize his mistake immediately. The illustrations need to be fairly dark given the plot, but they are rich in detail and avoid being murky. VERDICT A strictly additional purchase for large collections.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ