• When I was growing up in Alaska, the shortest day of the year was almost imperceptible. All of our winter days were short and dark, with lengthening light returning only in the early spring. And yet there was something magical to me about the promise of light and warmth coming back to our frozen landscape, a promise that was carried by a day with only a few scanty hours of daylight.

Now I live in Thailand, a country so close to the equator that the days vary in length only by a whisper of time with the shortest day of the year distinguished from the others by less than ten minutes. In Australia, not too far from my new home, our shortest day is their longest and their day of darkness is England’s Midsummer Night’s Eve. This is magical to me even now, far from Alaska and childhood.

What a wonderful opportunity to explain the mysteries of the solar system, and the wonders of geographic differences to children, during this time of darkness on one side of the globe and light on another! And what a glorious time for us at PaperTigers, and for all of our readers, to remember that no matter whether today is short or long on the corner of the globe that we inhabit, whether the hours are dark or filled with sunshine, books for all of us, on every day, are festivals of light.

Posted by: Janet | This entry was posted on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 12:18 am and is filed under Eventful World, Reading the World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: Alaska, Australia, Children's Books, England, festivals of light, shortest day of the year, solar system