GOOD NIGHT WIND

At the end of winter, the tired winter wind searches for “a place to rest.”

Inspired by a Yiddish story, author Marshall uses fresh language to reimagine this tale of the winter wind, exhausted after working all winter blowing leaves off trees and sculpting snow drifts for children, now looking for a respite. But all the places it tries to settle down—the cozy houses, a tree trunk, a rock—reject it because, of course, it’s the icy winter wind. When it rattles the windows of a remote cabin, frightening a young boy, the boy’s sister demands that the wind stop and tells her brother that “Wind is acting like a tired, angry baby.” The boy replies, with impeccable child logic, “Maybe Wind needs a nap?” The two children guide the wind to a cave, where the wind gratefully hunkers down. While the story is wonderfully inviting in itself, illustrator Doliveux’s images, created using dioramas constructed from cut-paper collage, then lit and photographed, are wondrous. Winter Wind is a swirling mass of paper strips in cool blues and whites with dark, expressive eyes. By contrast, the cozy rooms and houses are rendered in warm colors and steady lines to give viewers a sense of order and warmth. Both white and brown-skinned people are depicted.

A sparkling story whose fresh words and deeply imagined, skillfully rendered illustrations give it a feel that is both contemporary and folkloric.