I have this memory. I must have been about 5 or 6 and I was sitting in the kitchen in our house in Rockton, Ontario. It was Fall and I realized for the first time that it was dark at supper time in Autumn and it wasn’t so in Summer. It’s not an earth shattering realization, but it sort of rocked my world.
I’ve always had a special fondness for the quietness of Fall and Winter evenings. When my sister, brother-in-law, and I shared a house in Port Sydney, one of my favorite winter evening excursions was to walk through the woods to the small store that rented videos. The path through the forest lead over a stream.
That cozy feeling is captured in Jean E. Pendizwol’s Once Upon a Northern Night,
which is beautifully illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault.
The book is a lullaby that paints a picture of a northern winter night for a sleeping child. It describes the beauty of a snowfall, the wild animals that appear in the garden, the twinkling stars, the gentle rhythm of the northern lights and the etchings of frost on the window pane. This book recreates the magical feeling I had on those cold, wintry nights and fills my heart with warmth. It is a wonderful book that I highly recommend.
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