Children’s Books
Lighting Up the Night
‘Dusk,’ by Uri Shulevitz
From "Dusk"
By SARAH HARRISON SMITH
Published: December 11, 2013
In the interval between Hanukkah and Christmas, as we head toward the
winter solstice, light — from the sun, streetlamps, or candles — seems
more precious than ever. In his new picture book, “Dusk,” the
Warsaw-born author and illustrator Uri Shulevitz follows a little boy
and his grandfather on their afternoon walk through the streets of New
York, following the shifting lights of the short day as they go.
DUSK
By Uri Shulevitz
32 pp. Margaret Ferguson Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8)
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From "Dusk"
Shulevitz — who won a Caldecott medal for “The Fool of the World and the
Flying Ship” (1968) and three Caldecott Honors, one of them for “Snow” —
lets his watercolors do most of the narrative work here. His main
characters, described simply as “boy with dog and grandfather with
beard,” are first shown bundled in hats and coats, walking along a
residential street, with yellow sunlight angling steeply across the
house roofs. Later, they watch an intensely orange sun sink toward the
horizon. “’It’s getting dark,’ said boy with dog. ‘How sad, the day is
no more.’” “Dusk,” his grandfather replies, noncommittally.
As they continue into the city, the setting sun casts a last glow behind
the streetscapes. In Greenwich Village and on the Lower East Side,
eccentric characters make odd and entertaining speeches about their
holiday shopping: “I won’t pause, I won’t rest / till I find the
sweetest, the best. / Candies for Mandy / and cookies for Randy,” says a
retired acrobat in a beret. A grinning tourist snapping photos in
Midtown proclaims something similar in his own funny argot: “Dursky
musky, dusky zdat / kholidaysky ikla zat, / sveet candoosky ikla
bloosky, / bedye funnye ikla zdat.” (Try reading that aloud without
smiling.)
The reward of this walk — for the reader as well as the boy and his
grandfather — are Shulevitz’s depictions of the holiday displays on
Fifth Avenue and Times Square. “As nature’s lights go out,” he writes,
“City’s lights come on.” Streets are lit with garlands of snowflake
decorations, brass bands glitter in front of enormous illuminated
Christmas trees, and snowy, toy-filled wonderlands fill the shop
windows.
Many holiday books focus on the traditions and stories of one particular
religion — or ignore faith altogether. Shulevitz opts for a more
evenhanded approach that seems just right for a city as proudly diverse —
but far from secular — as New York. On one side street, the boy and
grandfather look up at an apartment building where three windows show
equally festive displays of a menorah, a Kwanzaa candelabrum and a
Christmas tree, all ablaze with lights. Three little faces peek out,
excited by their own observances. Though his text leaves much unsaid,
Shulevitz’s art suggests that in their reverence for light, these holy
days have much in common and go well together, each doing its part to
brighten the New York night.