The shortest day and longest night of the year, Winter Solstice, happens amid many celebrations around the world — reminders that even as sunlight diminishes, we can gather together and create our own communal light. This book grows out of Winter Solstice bonfire gatherings near the California home of author Kate Allen Fox. Friends and family bring offerings of firewood:
"... collecting them like
candles for wishing.
A wish for light.
A wish for hope.
A wish for renewal."
Sparkling and lyrical, the pages remind us of our ties to those nearby (hands reaching for one another "in silent reassurance") and of others around the world celebrating in their own way, including those on the far side of the globe who instead observe the year's longest day.
Illustrator Elisa Paganelli brings us a visual feast that includes beach scenes with children spinning cartwheels and building sand castles but also cosmic scenes suited to this global event, in which we see the earth spinning as "half of the planet tips farther and farther away from the sun." In the circle around the bonfire's light, faces shine. In spite of surrounding darkness, the flame's wind-blown warmth carries a glow that opens out into a view of the starry skies.
Fox completes this book for four-to-eight-year-old readers with mentions of other Winter Solstice celebrations, like St. Lucia's day in Scandinavia and the Dongzhi festival in China. She also gives a short, easy-to-grasp scientific explanation of solstices.
