Into This Night We Are Rising

Describes a nighttime dream-world where children fly through the clouds, stuffed animals talk, and stars sing.

This ethereal bedtime book features a flock of children who float out of their bedroom windows and up into the night sky; a luscious, poetic text ("The day is a flower . . . there are petals of soft light in our hair"); and appropriately dreamy artwork. Reminiscent at times of the flying sequence in Raymond Briggs's The Snowman , the nocturnal escapades of London's multicultural cast include a pillow fight amid the clouds, a frolic with the animals in the constellations, a starlight serenade and a final, hand-in-hand descent "through the wild darkness . . . past the giant trees of earth" and home to bed. Beautifully suited to reading aloud, the hushed cadences of London's prose blend felicitously with the background illustrations, a gentle combination of soft colored pencil, collage and pastels. Karas fills the spreads with whimsically surreal images: in the serenade scene, for example, the clouds and stars are cutouts, made from musical scores ("A Light Night Music," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"). Children's BOMC main selection. Ages 3-8.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.