Every Color of Light: A Book about the Sky

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Age range 4+

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. Harmonising our human experience to the natural world, Arai invites the reader to hold imaginative space for our oneness with the natural world.

Reviews

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, its 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 lookreally lookat 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. -STARRED REVIEW, Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Ryji 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.