cover image A Night-Time Tale

A Night-Time Tale

Alexandra Junge, , trans. by Kate Connolly. . Winged Chariot, $16.95 (36pp) ISBN 978-1-905341-06-1

German artist Junge probingly examines a child's fear of the night. The book begins as young Laura climbs into a bed, rendered in pencil lines on a spacious white page, and wonders, "Why does it always have to get dark?" Night creeps toward her from the right-hand side of the next spread, a crawling mass of smoky gray-green. Next, a train appears with gargoyles for passengers, driven by a monster many times Laura's size. The girl is fearful, but curious, too: "What would a world without night really be like?" A series of curious gouaches follows: a tiny line of people gaze at the sky, wondering where the stars have gone, and a group of workmen saw down lamp-posts like trees. "There would be no moon to deliver beautiful dreams," the narrator points out, as a giant crescent moon–headed woman bends way over to drop tiny dreams down the chimney of Laura's house. "Dreams in which... Laura is able to forget her fear of the dark." Three wordless spreads demonstrate her victorious dreams: she lassoes a lion and tames it for an audience of the aforementioned gargoyles. The book's elegant European feel is ideally suited to the subject of the subconscious. In Junge's treatment of the fear of night she does not moralize; her leisurely examination of night and day is just right for bedtime, and she delicately expresses the story's message—that the night has gifts, too. Ages 5-7. (Sept.)