Children's Review: Nightsong

Ari Berk's (The Secret History of Mermaids) lyrical text and Loren Long's acrylic-and-graphite nightscapes re-imagine the classic tale of a young one leaving its nest as a journey of not only independence but also of creativity.

Children first meet Chiro, the young bat hero, as he hangs with his mother from the ceiling of their cave, in a circle of twilight hues. "The sun had set, and the shadows clinging to the walls of the cave began to wake and whisper," the book begins. The outline of a mouse appears in the lower right-hand corner. On this night, Chiro's mother urges him to take his first solo flight, but he is afraid. It is "darker even than the water before dawn," and he cannot find his way. "There are other ways to see," his mother assures him, "Use your good sense." He asks her what that means. "Sense is the song you sing out into the world, and the song the world sings back to you," she explains. She tells him to fly to their breakfast pond, then fly home. "Do not go farther than the pond, not unless your song is sure," says she.

Like a cameraman, Long moves from the tight mother-child embrace in the opening image, to the moment when his mother lets him go, to a next shot of Chiro very small indeed, then completely absent on a spread of shadowy finger-like tree limbs. "Long arms rose up in front of him, waving slowly, blocking his path," says the text. Then Chiro remembers his mother's advice, and sings. Chiro's song functions as a kind of sonar headlight, revealing a path of color in the darkest corners of the woods: "His song flew ahead of him, and soon he could hear something singing back." Chiro finds his way to the pond, averting hazards both natural (a flock of geese) and manmade (electric lines). Then the winged hero goes "Out, out to the margins of the world." Here Chiro dominates the entire spread, eyes gleaming with the awe of the ocean at dawn filling his senses. The little bat sings "louder than he ever sang before."

The duration of Chiro's journey lasts from sundown to sunup, but he has passed a milestone. He knows he can go it alone. Berk shows readers that Chiro's mother has prepared him well. The hero recognizes guideposts along the way, and subtly demonstrates how a bat's sonar works: "Tall trees called out to him, chanted the lengths of their long branches and the girths of their rough trunks." As the night lengthens, Long's palette deepens, from a cornflower blue to a deep blue-violet. The book closes with mother and child in the same circle of light, this time shaded in sunrise hues. An ideal book for sending a child to school for the first time, tryouts for a team or a class play, this lovely, lilting story inspires confidence through a mother's belief that her child will use all his skill and knowledge to explore the unknown. --Jennifer M. Brown

Shelf Talker: This lyrical, sumptuous picture book about a small bat taking his first solo night flight will inspire confidence in any child trying something new--and independently--for the first time.

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