The Best Children’s Books About Shadows

One round flashlight beam crosses a black-and-white forest, revealing everything awake outside the tent.

A bare attic and one light bulb become a shadow jungle with teeth.

Rabbit cannot escape the enormous black rabbit behind him — until he reaches somewhere genuinely dangerous.

A bored shadow pops free, finds color, and starts a small rebellion among every shadow in town.

Bear tries running from his shadow, hiding from it, and nailing it to the ground — all because it keeps frightening the fish.

Two friends sign across their bedroom windows and build roaring, chomping shadow puppets to chase away a monster.

Shadow prowls around night fires and dancers in deep violet, orange, and black cut paper.

A patient moth answers a kitten’s questions about the sun, streetlights, fireflies, darkness, and the shape at his feet.

Trees, houses, airplanes, clouds, and children all block the sun — and every one gets a shadow.

One child’s day moves from a long morning shadow to noontime shade, violet evening, and moonlight.

Frog returns to his pond after winter and finds an enormous clawed monster waiting in the lantern light.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s little shadow goes in and out with a child through a painted dream night.