Why We Have Day and Night

I don't want to know the person who doesn't like a book with Edward Gorey illustrations or at least I don't want to spend much time with them. As my 7-year-old daughter put it, this story is weird and awesome. That being said it is a very short story that will not take you long to read no matter how enchanted you are with the pictures. The $12.95 price is pretty steep for what it is.

This is a quick picture book for kids that happens to have wonderful Gorey illustrations and a very curious dialogue of four young characters who are trying to understand why it’s dark. The dialogue is incomplete, and leaves my kids (4 & 6) in different states of confusion or annoyance. They insist on an ending, and will finish it themselves when I stop. I think it has them thinking, and it has me thinking too. Oh, and the book is gorgeous. Recommended.

This gorgeous new edition from Pomegranate is a beautifully bound, stunning reprint of the original. The illustrations are stunningly reproduced, with rich deep blacks ink. The paper is heavy and durable with a smooth finish. The illustrations them selves are classic Gorey - lively, fascinating characters, economy of background and motion, and always a touch of enigmatic curiosity about them.
The story itself is a delightful discussion and inventive illustration of the physics of planetary rotation, how the sun shines on the Earth, and why in fact we do have night and day. The demonstration then takes a twist and we are transported into a realm where illustrative explanation, reality and fantasy merge, and we are not at all certain show more where we are. The books ends with an enigma, and this is the one point at which I am uncertain if it is suitable for young children who are still thinking very concretely. I would recommend it for adults and for children over the age of five or six, when imagination is alive, but won't overpower their sense of security. Especially great for young readers who love odd or fanciful ideas, who are fascinated by life's big questions, and who enjoy a sense of quirky mystery. show less

My opinion of this book has evolved as I've reread and sat with it. Maybe that's high praise for a children's book, I'm not sure. At first I was nonplussed. The twist ending seemed gratuitous at first, inserted because an Edward Gorey project is expected to be slightly unsettling and odd rather than because the story earns the ending or the ending really adds to the book.
My 3 year old son however took the whole thing in a much more light-hearted way. The strangeness of the ending merely prompted him to keep puzzling it out and asking questions. We ended up with a few good conversations about insects, the rotation of the earth, and fiction. As a result of the reading, he started making more counterfactual jokes, trying to imagine himself show more empathetically in different physical situations, and coming up with his own multiple alternative explanations for common daily phenomena.
I just wanted to enjoy the book without any great expectations for its impact, but got so much more.
...and of course the illustrations are great. show less

Gorey's art elevates any book to keeper status, and though the text here is not especially ambitious, it's still a lot of fun.

Great twist at the end where the rational explanation for night and day, illustrated by a bug on a revolving orange, is subverted when the bug eats his way into the permanently dark interior of the orange - avoiding what would have been a safe but dull ending.

Lovely production, too, with the glossy fingerprintable pages and playful font.

This little book follows four young children as on page after black page (My kids said, "That's a lot of black ink." and "That book must have cost a lot to print.") they try to explain why it's dark and what happened to the light. After many suggestions such as still being asleep or a squirrel chewing through the wire, the oldest brother kindly reminds the others of their father's explanation of day and night demonstrated with an orange and a flashlight. But just when you think that the true reason will satisfy their curiosity, the children decide that the imaginary bug riding the spinning orange through day and night is the cause of "why it's dark all over now." It's a bit of fun, but don't expect your child to learn the true show more explanation of "why we have day and night" from this book.

The whimsical illustrations by Edward Gorey are fun to follow from page to page. Keep your eye on the pet cat, who seems to be after the toy cat. Will he succeed in stealing it away from the little child? show less

The best part of this little book is the pictures, etchings, rather, white on black. Especially droll are the pictures of the cat, caught in his catness so accurately. It is an amusing little book, more, perhaps for adults than children although published by Pomegranate Kids. In thinking back over my daughter's responses to books when little, this might have disturbed her a bit what with cyclones and burst eyeballs..... but maybe I'm underestimating her.