Praise for Night Song

A 2025 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year, Outstanding Merit! A finalist for the 2024 New England Book Award, Best Picture Book! Longlisted for the 2025 Mass Book Award, Best Picture Book/Early Reader! A Children's Book Council January 2023 Hot Off the Press selection!A 2025 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year, Outstanding Merit! "A frog who wishes to sing like the morning birds is reminded of his important vocal role at dusk. Lyrical text and idyllic art in pencil, ink, and watercolor."
Bank Street College of Education

Hyewon Yum’s illustrations bring vibrancy to Night Song, a picture book for children ages 4-8 written with gentle humor by Mk Smith Despres… With its inventive text and appealing pictures, this is a special book.
Wall Street Journal

STARRED REVIEW! ? “This is a lovely, quiet fable about community. The text is full of observations of the habitat of a woodland pond, and the gorgeous artwork creates a peaceful setting, with its artful employment of watercolor, colored pencils and ink. This calm, beautiful, nature-centered book is sure to please readers who enjoy the imagined inner life of animals. For ages 4-8, when a quiet book about fitting in is what’s needed. All collections that serve young children should buy this book.”
Youth Services Book Review

Using a mix of watercolor, colored pencil, and ink, Yum illustrates Despres’ lilting, sonorous text with idyllic scenes of songbirds and waterfowl, butterflies and dragonflies, amid verdant tufts of greenery and sprays of flowers. As the day passes and the tonal palette dims subtly from bright day to a cool blue star-flecked night, one last view leaves the small frog with eyes closed in blissful appreciation. Poetic and peaceful: a natural for bedtime reading.
Kirkus Reviews

About the Authors

Mk Smith Despres writes, teaches, and reads lots of books with their family in western Massachusetts, where the stars are particularly bright and the night song is especially beautiful.

Hyewon Yum is an author and illustrator of many picture books, including The Happiness of a Dog with a Ball in Its Mouth, which was named a Best Children's Book of 2021 by the New York Times; The Twins' Blanket, a Junior Library Guild selection; and Mom, It's My First Day of Kindergarten!, which won the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator award and was selected as a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her family.

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