posted on 15 Aug 2024

The Night Whale by Bryher Mackenzie and Gillian Eilidh O’Mara

The night sky can be a place of boundless imagination: a place where the biggest and most splendid dreams can, for a while, become a shared reality. So it is for the young girl and her Nana who climb a hill and where:

“…Nana speaks of astronomy often and holds lessons fuelled by hot chocolate, biscuits and tales from many moons ago.”

On this night, however, there’s something very special in the air because, as they trace the patterns made by the stars in the sky, they both sense ‘she is coming’.

And who is this ‘she’ they talk about? It’s the Night Whale.

“She looks at home, swimming amongst the stars. She belongs up there and greets Nana like an old friend.”

The little girl can see that Nana knows the Night Whale of old as the two greet each other and together they climb onto its back and off they fly ‘over vast oceans and thick forests’.

All the beauties of the world are there for them to see as they soar through the sky – cities full of light, snow-capped peaks and the Northern Lights.

The sky is their canvass and they can paint whatever their imagination can create.

The little girl shares something with her Nana that transcends dull reality – and now that Nana is no longer there to go up the hill with her, the comfort and security of the time the little girl has spent with her Nana will remain with her forever in the world of memory and the imagination. She will continue to wait for the return of the Night Whale.

A touching tale of coping with goodbyes to a loved one, the book is lavishly illustrated by Gillian Eilidh O’Mara using rich dark reds, charcoal greys, contrasting splashes of white and the sumptuous colours of the night as it grades slowly towards dawn.

Available now from Walker Books, you will be able to get your copy from your local independent bookshop – who will, of course, be happy to order it for you if they don’t have it on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

August 2024