The Night Is for Darkness

A journey through the darkness takes a family to a new home, on a timeline that many who have moved close enough to allow multiple trips can relate to. The two children and their father experience common animal nightlife—including deer, bats, and rabbits—from the safe confines of their car as they travel, and finally arrive at their new home, where they are greeted by a loving mother who appears to have been hard at work getting their house in order. Stories and snacks in a fort, bedtime prayers and finally snuggles round out the night as the two children fall peacefully asleep in their new home. The combination of the themes of nighttime and moving is an interesting one, simultaneously feeling like a fresh take on both while leaving the reader just a tad confused as the story progresses as to what the book is actually about. Stutzman’s text is lyrical, and the cadence and rhyming feel calming—the ideal tone to address children’s fears about either moving or encountering the dark. Since many children, with their early bedtimes, have less experience with the natural world in the dark, the description and illustrations of nightlife are illuminating—in more ways than one, thanks to Kuefler’s masterful use of light.