Lights Out opens in a new tab
By Marsha Diane Arnold opens in a new tab
Illustrated by Susan Reagan opens in a new tab
This book has a quest. Fox and Beetle are ready for darkness and set off in search of the ‘Dark of Night”. (“Across the wide, wide world, / they search… / for the Dark of Night. // But everywhere—Lights!”) One can list the lights in your own neighborhood.
“House lights, car lights, truck lights, billboards, store signs, streetlights.” Author Marsha Diane Arnold was inspired by her father who taught her to love the night sky and later from camping at 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevadas.
The journey depicted in Lights Out draws attention to an important concern that affects the ecosystem: light pollution.
How can we fix a problem if most people are unaware that it exists? From the author’s note:
We hear a lot about air and water pollution, but not as much about light pollution. Light pollution happens when there are too many – and the wrong kind of – artificial lights. Tall buildings with many lights confuse both migrating and local birds. Frogs don’t sing under artificial lights. Fireflies use their glow to communicate, but they can’t talk with each other when there’s too much light. Nocturnal animals eat and hunt at night. If it’s not dark enough, they can’t hunt as effectively. Overexposure to artificial light changes the rhythms of animal and human bodies, sometimes affecting our sleep and overall health.
For centuries, people on earth looked to the night sky for navigation, for inspiration, for wonder. But today, we can barely see that sky through all the artificial light. In fact, we see less than 1% of the night sky compared with people of the 1600’s.
This wonderful book captures the problem of light pollution adversely affecting animals in nighttime ecosystems and then gives hope that is perfect for our kids.
When the traveling group come upon baby turtles hatching on the shore, the creatures decide to swim to a small island. They see the natural nighttime light they crave and need. The final pages show Fox, Beetle, Songbird, Frog, and Bear coming to darkness, and the dazzling stars are mesmerizing.
Submitted by Karen Kosko
