Rosemary Wells wrote this book (1994). That’s why I plucked it from a shelf of used books for sale. The dark palette of David McPhail did not appeal to me until after I finished a lesson for Teachers Pay Teachers. The darkness no longer felt dismal and, instead, felt rich and sensuous. The story is from the perspective of a young sibling, which felt consistent with Ms Wells’s Max and Ruby books. I did not find Night Sound, Morning Colors when Googling books by Ms Wells. But since there were several other books besides her Max and Ruby series, I concluded this was also one of hers. It did not disappoint.
The title page has an illustration of a solitary house in a countryside. A light source beyond the right border seems to be the rising sun. This painting captures both night and morning simultaneously. We never learn the specific location of this house, and that becomes confusing later in the story. Wherever it is seems to include beautiful natural landscape.
The book has four chapters, each with a page border color to designate the chapter. The pages for “When I Wake Up” have a green border, for example. The first chapter focuses on colors. Ms Wells makes us wait with a “morning mist, hiding everything” when the main character awakens and looks out the window. She begins slowly, revealing only a spiderweb with “emerald raindrops.” Her text captures the reader immediately and doesn’t release until the very end. It’s a “big droopy spiderweb” that’s “loaded with emerald raindrops.” On page two, she brings in the sun so we can see “the stream of gold honey that spins from my spoon to my biscuit.” Alliteration and assonance let us float on her languid river of words.
Color sneaks in from all directions. The violets this child plants name both a flower and a color. The pet goldfish includes both a color (recall we already encountered the word gold at breakfast) and name of the fish. Wells invites readers into the story by omitting the color names of lunch. This begs the reader to name the colors of the apple, banana, and peach in the painting. Her use of contrast shows up here and in later chapters; the violets “are so bright in their deep black earth”.
Color isn’t as accessible when the sun sets, so the illustrations employ indoor sources. The text shifts to highlight sound. While I didn’t fully understand the description of Grandpa’s voice, “quiet voice rolls up and down like ocean waves”, I loved the simile. Is it his enthusiastic use of volume and intonation? Rain “pattering and popping” on leaves contrasts with the clink of a spoon against a china egg-cup. I can’t explain Wells’s brilliant sentence “The chocolate sauce sounds thick and sleepy.”, but I sure can feel it! Bath water gushes and mother’s footsteps tap in the hall, more delightful contrast. Answer me this: Why does the child’s father hum “Danny Boy” at bedtime? It’s a song sung at funerals. Chapter one begins with waking up and Chapter two ends with going to bed. A world of sounds invades the safety of this child’s home at night. The train—arriving from somewhere and going elsewhere—expands landscape even further.
Chapters three and four take the child into the outside world. Grandma escorts the child into a world of smell. The bakery “smells of new, warm bread”. While the flower store likely smells fragrant, Wells reminds us this is a story from the child’s point of view. She directs us to what is in the child’s hand, Grandma’s wallet, “creaky, strong, and worn shiny” with “the secret smell of old leather”. At home, in the kitchen, Grandma creates “a zone of vanilla and butter and chocolate”. We sense not just individual smells but an entire atmosphere in which they intermingle into an holistic experience. We infer the warmth of the oven! Here is where the story’s setting confuses me—why does Grandma say the Kentucky Kitchen coffee smells of “the mountains of home”? Information is missing here. The most precious line in the story is on the two-page spread of a birthday dinner. It’s the child’s perception of Mother—“She smells just of herself.”
An older sibling tells the child to wear a “thick woolly sweater” , and the illustration shows the older one assisting the younger. Ahh, isn’t this the fate of the youngest, always helped by others? The joyful dog finally gets a name, and all three characters head out to “behind the hill” to find a lost ball. We notice the seasons now, and that time has been marked all along. The violets planted in warm weather, the cookie that “tastes of Halloween”, and here “the freezing wind”. Wells draws us into a world of touch on this walk. The child’s hands that were washed in bright, white, water from a hose at the beginning of the story now hold its bright, white, frozen cousin. The icicle has a point, unlike the liquid. Jumping on a forest floor of pine needles feels like a “spongy and springy” mattress. Wait for it—the contrast, a prickly bush that rips through a pant leg and cuts the skin. And again—a feather with “velvety softness”. And again—“hot toast” with “shivering jelly”.
This story is so satisfying that I wonder how many dozens of drafts it took to create. The word choice is precise. The internal referencing wraps events into a unified package. The illustrations blend well with the text, yet, because I don’t see any characters make eye contact, they fail to portray an intimacy that Wells’s narrative deserves. Despite a copyright of 1994, this child is not gender identified, a bonus for readers of 2022.
My Picture Book Talk lesson for this story is here.
