Monday, December 21st, the winter solstice arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest day and the longest night of the year. For many, it's a time to enjoy winter evenings inside, reading special books to loved ones at bedtime, or reading for oneself.
Here is Susan Cooper's The Shortest Day, with a poem written long ago, now gorgeously illustrated by Carson Ellis.
In her afterword, Susan Cooper writes of the long - ancient to today - celebrations that happen at the winter solstice, welcoming the sun after the longest night. She wrote this poem that is so beautifully illustrated by Carson Ellis for a group called Revels that celebrates the solstice with performances in various places. Ellis introduces the sun as a male figure with a sun's head. In the story, it both appears, disappears, and in the grand "re-entry", returns. On that final page, Ellis shows it filling the page in a landscape of snowy hills with children like those seen on the cover showing their excitement! There are few words and they are surrounded by all kinds of people 'reveling', bringing back the sun, "And everywhere down the centuries." In a somber double-page spread, Ellis shows the sky darkening, the sun nearly set while people gather wood as ravens watch. The book is history and poetry combined plus a celebration itself of people's ways of living life as best they know at the time.
The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
- And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
- And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
- Came people singing, dancing,
- To drive the dark away.
- They lighted candles in the winter trees;
- They hung their homes with evergreen;
- They burned beseeching fires all night long
- To keep the year alive.
- Find the rest here!