Firefly (Night Creatures #1)

In a captivating series starter from Macfarlane (The World to Come) and Hawker (The Last Tree), spell-like verse and moody copper plate etchings rally around a lone figure’s efforts to resist winter’s doldrums. As the book opens, a small figure is shown confronting a densely hatched November forest with thick shadows and stark branches. The tone shifts with the suggestion to, following December’s arrival, “seek what’s glowing,” and alliterative, assonant lines highlight spots of brightness amid winter’s gloom: “Saturn’s glimmer,/ Snowdrift’s shine and comet’s shimmer.” The path through darkness isn’t without peril—mid-book, the nearly featureless figure, whose skin echoes the white of the page, plummets through scratchy blackness. Again, text steps in to uplift (“But that’s the hour you must muster/ All the glint and all the lustre”) as it reiterates appreciation for gleaming entities—a firefly, “glittering ghosts, electric angels,” constellations, and more. Finally, hands are shown cupping a luminous ball, and the figure stands before a marvelous conflagration that carries “fears to flight,/ set night on fire.” A kind of charm to will away spirit-darkening forces, the book offers a balm for winter weariness. Ages 5–7. Author’s agent: Jessica Woollard, David Higham Assoc. (Oct.)