Ann Batchelor Hursey, author of A Certain Hold, (2014) MFA in Poetry from Pacific Lutheran University, Rainier Writers Workshop, 2012. Former arts educator and elementary school teacher
Nyamidie’s children’s book based on his poem, “Night Critters Play,” sings in rhyming couplets of a bedtime journey where animals awaken at night and play in the moonlight, beneath “freckled stars.”
This is a story full of “big-eyed owls,” “tadpole-filled ponds,” and “hundreds of crickets [who] ask friends to play with them in thickets.” Christiansen’s illustrations invite us to search for the animals hidden among foliage and shadows.
“Night Critters Play’ is a delight for all ages to read together and to ponder the natural wonders of our world. After all, “the night’s playing creatures/ must rush to sleep” . . . “The sky lightens; a day/ critter stirs in a nest.”