Outside in World | Browse Books

Use our Book Finder to search for books by Title (or part of the title), Author, ISBN, Age Range, Keyword, or Continent/Country. Then simply click the magnifying glass to start your search.

If a title starts with 'The', leave this out as this is added to the end of the title in brackets. funny pictures funny images funny photos really funny pictures

‘We need the literature of other countries to expand our
horizons and stimulate our ideas. Without it, we are not only
diminished, we are starved’
(The Times, Magnus Linklater 29/06/05)

Please email us to sign up to our Newsletter

Title: Night Walk (The)

Author: Marie Dorleans

Translator: Polly Lawson

Illustrator:

Publisher: Floris Books

Date Published: 2020

Format: Hardback

Genre:

Book Category: Picture Book

Age Range: 6-8

Original Title: First published in French as Nous Avons Rendez-Vous, Editions du Seuil, Paris, France, 2018

Country of Origin: France

Night Walk (The)

by Marie Dorleans
Age Range: 6-8

In the middle of the night, two children are roused from their sleep by their parents. “Let’s go, so we get there on time” their mother urges. The family get ready for an adventure. Stepping outside into a beautiful summer’s night, they walk through the “sleeping village” into the countryside and a forest, before climbing a hillside to reach their final destination. As the light changes from the darkness of night to early morning dawn it is a magical experience for the two children.

This evocative and captivating book by French author and illustrator Marie Dorléans has exquisite prose, beautifully translated by Polly Lawson and mesmerising artwork. It is easy to see why it won the prestigious Landerneau Children’s Book Prize in 2019 and was the New York Times/New York Public Library's Best Illustrated Children’s Book in 2021.

The gently paced text adjusts its rhythm as the family walks through the village where the pavements are “still warm from the heat of the day”; passing the big hotel which was wide awake as it glowed “like a chandelier”; reaching the edge of the village the “last house…was almost asleep. It had one eye open.” After walking through the open countryside the family “threaded through the whispering forest. The earth was damp, the bark smelled comforting.”

The Night Walk engages all of the senses and as The New York Times commented “evokes a luminous sense of wonder”. Although immersed with a lyrical text, set out in white lettering against the nighttime hues, it is the illustrations that steal the show. Carefully hand-drawn, using a mixed media of graphite pencil, and watercolour paints and finished using digital methods, Dorléans provides such detail of the nocturnal world with its varied shades of blue, contrasted with black silhouettes-like outlines of trees and countryside which stretch across double-page spreads. As the dawn emerges a softer blue light fills the pages and the reader can experience the same wonder and adjustment from darkness to light as the characters in the book.

A truly inspirational book.