AWARDS & REVIEWS

★ A Publishers Weekly Best Picture Book of 2020

★ A Kirkus Best Book of 2020

★ A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book of 2020

★ Winner of Best Illustrator Award, 2021 Northern Lights Book Awards

★ “In a strong translation by Boyd, a Japanese team captures the magic of a summer rainstorm. Working in thick, dense strokes, Arai (What What What?) creates a lake surrounded by foliage whose colors range from spring green to spruce blue. Employing landscapes in lieu of human or animal characters, Osada and Arai ask readers to look—really look—at the rain, the way the changing weather transforms the visible spectrum, and the magnificence of the night sky, phenomena all too often unseen in a hurry-up world. The result is a story that sharpens the senses and quiets the soul.” —STARRED REVIEW, Publishers Weekly

★ “Osada’s sensory text is written in a satisfyingly economical and precise manner. Sprinkled throughout the text is punchy, onomatopoeic language, such as ‘boom, bah-bah-BOOM!’ for thunder. Arai’s lush, atmospheric landscape art is remarkably textured, with what appear to be scratches in the art for the driving rain. Appropriately, the palette is the star of the show; readers see every mood of Mother Nature and her corresponding colors: all shades of green imaginable; warm pastel shades of light filling the sky; vivid, golden, post-rain hues. There’s a subtle moment of whimsy when “stars…share their stories,” and readers see small shapes in the night sky (a squirrel, a saxophone). Colors fade with the children listening: ‘We’re all / falling / … / soundly / … / asleep….’ Simply spectacular.”—STARRED REVIEW, Kirkus Reviews

★ Mindfulness, spectacle and awe emanate from every page of this breathtaking collaboration. Arai's forceful use of color and line tell as much of the story as Osada's punctuation-less text loaded with illuminating figurative language. Kudos to David Boyd, who translated this 2011 picture book from the Japanese, for text that sounds as melodic as Osada's original poetry must be. All three contributors express a respect for nature's strength, resilience and beauty. Rain or shine, Every Color of Light is a cleansing breath of fresh air. —STARRED REVIEW, Shelf Awareness

“The life-affirming splendor of the spectrum within and without is what Japanese poet and picture-book author Hiroshi Osada and artist Ryōji Arai celebrate in Every Color of Light: A Book about the Sky, translated by David Boyd — a tender serenade to the elements that unspools into a lullaby, inviting ecstatic wakefulness to the fulness of life, inviting a serene surrender to slumber…Arai’s almost synesthetic art — radiating more than color, radiating sound, a kind of buzzing aliveness — only amplifies this sense of consolation in the drama of the elements, this sense of change as a portal not to terror but to transcendent serenity.”—Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

“An exquisite picture book for children ages 4-7 written by Hiroshi Osada and translated from the Japanese by David Boyd. Ryōji Arai’s artwork has a spacious, distempered, breathless feel... Poised and lovely, the language and images here combine to awaken the reader’s awareness of fugitive moments of natural beauty.” —Wall Street Journal

“Beautifully painted in subdued colors, Ryōji Arai’s illustrations match the mood of Hiroshi Osada’s simple, poetic description of a day (in David Boyd’s fine rendering)—from storm to clearing to nightfall—each of the day’s moods embracing broad swaths of color, even during the harshest of the rains. One’s eyes adjust to the color tones, after which details can be made out, suggesting both the range of colors and lushness of life and activity all around. The words are simple enough for most young children to read on their own, but they will probably be most fascinated by staring at the pictures. A good bed-time book too, no doubt.”—Tom Bowden, The Book Beat