Lucy's Light

September 7, 2015
In a sweet but uneven offering, a young firefly’s excitement about lighting up the night with her family turns to intimidation when she realizes how insignificant her light seems compared to that of the moon. Álvarez’s deep shades of blue and violet give the nocturnal forest a magical undertone while contrasting with the fireflies’ fuzzy yellow lights and the white glow of the full moon. And her bug-eyed, bright teal fireflies are adorable, accessorized with cloche hats, newsboy caps, and leaf umbrellas. But the story itself is let down in several places by clunky language and hard-to-track jumps in time. “You’re still too small,” Grandma Firefly tells Lucy one night, “but soon you’ll shine just like everyone else!” On the next page, Lucy’s father tells her that her time has come, but the text doesn’t do enough to help bridge the transition; it feels like the same evening, although more time has presumably passed. Lucy’s elders provide patient, loving reassurances throughout, but her turnaround, sparked by learning that the moon’s light is merely reflected, feels as arbitrary as her initial crisis of confidence. Ages 4–up.

August 15, 2015
Lucy, "the youngest member of a family of fireflies," must overcome an irrational, moon-induced anxiety in order to leave her family tree trunk and glow. The first six pages pull readers into a lush, beautiful world of nighttime: "When the sun has set, silence falls over the Big Forest, and all of the nighttime animals wake up." Mixed media provide an enchanting forest background, with stylized flora and fauna eventually illuminated by a large, benign moon, because the night "doesn't like to catch them by surprise." Turning the page catches readers by surprise, though: the family of fireflies is decidedly comical and silly-looking. Similarly, the text moves from a lulling, magical cadence to a distinct shift in mood as the bugs ready themselves for their foray into the night: "They wave their bottoms in the air, wiggle their feelers, take a deep, deep breath, and sing, 'Here we go, it's time to glow!' " It's an acceptable change, but more unevenness follows. Lucy's excitement about finally joining the other bugs turns to "sobbing" two nights in a row. Instead of directly linking her behavior to understandable reactions of children to newness, the text undermines itself by making Lucy's parents' sweet reassurances impotent and using the grandmother's scientific explanation of moonlight as an unnecessary metaphor. Further detracting from the story, the text becomes ever denser and more complex over the book's short span. Too many bugs, figuratively. (Picture book. 4-6)

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