YOU ARE LIGHT

Explore the ways sunlight enriches the Earth, enhanced by colorful, dynamically shifting die-cut circles.

Don’t be fooled by the board-book format; there’s plenty for readers of all ages in this interactive art book, written as a poetic ode to the power and importance of light. Evocatively stylized symbols—a tongue of flame, a sheaf of wheat—fill the middles of the rectos, surrounded by 12 die-cut holes that hold translucent jewel-toned inserts. Younger readers will marvel while holding the book up to the light as each page turn changes the way the colored layers interact and mix, an exploration that the durable plastic circles allow. Older, more sophisticated readers will appreciate the lyrical ponderings on the sun’s effects on the water cycle and growing seasons and will find meaning in the book’s culmination tying the sun back to readers; text opposite a human silhouette surrounded by a radiating rainbow mandala informs them that “This light is you. And you are light.” Becker uses the glowing swatches of color powerfully. Variegated shades of blue circle a wave’s crest; a decorative trio of gold, lime, and violet halos grain; a stark penultimate page of white moon against black background has no color at all. This book is demanding of its readers, but those who take the time are in for a treat.

A well-crafted art book with emotional resonance.