Shining a Light on Global Connections

Millbrook Press/Lerner 2020

FLASH AND GLEAM: LIGHT IN OUR WORLD is a picture book/poem written by Sue Fliess and brilliantly illustrated by Khoa Le. Fliess is a prolific and masterful writer-in-rhyme whose extended poem incorporates light-inspired vocabulary in lines and phrases that feel as if they were born to land exactly where they are in the text. Le is the Vietnamese artist who seems to have discovered light-transferring tools while creating the glowing and sweeping art in these pages. 
The subtitle encompasses the important role and magic of light within our physical and social world within a global perspective. Four diverse families from four cultures and distant corners of the world experience light from sunrise to bedtime in ways that celebrate distinctions and the universality of family life. 
This is an exemplary case in which the art and book design effectively reveal and pace  many patterns and themes (daily routines, holidays, mundane and special family time) with color tones, moods, perspectives, and expressions portrayed in parallel narrow panels, powerful double-page spreads, facing images, and sequential revelations that draw audiences into each scene and relationship. 
The back matter offers a double-page spread with basic science information about light (incorporating key vocabulary and concepts) and information about the central role of light within various cultural celebrations. "Fun fact" bubbles are splashed across those two pages. Each fact featured could spark (see what I did there?) further investigation. 
This book is a fine example of one rich with language, images, and concepts that subtlety offers an appreciation of our universal human connections, for young people and for those who read to them.

Opinion is based on eBook edition viewed via publisher with no promise of a review.