Every Color of Light: A Book about the Sky [Hardcover]

A Publishers Weekly Best Picture Book of 2020
A Kirkus Best Book of 2020
A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book of 2020
Best Illustrator Award, 2021 Northern Lights Book Awards

Gentle and lyrical, Every Color of Light is a bedtime story told by the elements.

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

Ry?ji Araiwas 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 Boydteaches translation at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. He won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2018 forSlow Boatby Hideo Furukawa, in 2022 forThe Holeby Hiroko Oyamada, and in 2024 forTakaokas Travelsby Tatsuhiko Shibusawa.