A Guide for Families and Reading Groups

These stories are made to be read aloud, one Day each night. Read slowly near the end of each Day. The two lines that come back every night are there to be said together. Children soon know them by heart: "Slow wings, soft light. The lamp is on tonight." And: "The lamp is on. The door is near. And all is well here."

Each Day has its own small line that comes three times, such as "Tuck, tuck, tuck" or "Plip, plop, a sky in every pool." Pause before the third time and let the child say it. Then lower your voice a little more.

In the first twelve Days, people and animals tell old sayings. You can ask the child, "What do you think?" There is no wrong answer at bedtime. Later Days look at each saying again and find out what is known. Some children like to go back to the Day where they first heard a saying and read the two Days side by side.

Questions to talk about: Who waits for you when you come home? What makes you feel safe at night? Which friend of Pim and Nell would you like to visit? What would you put on Nell's windowsill? Which Day had the place you liked best, and why?

Things to do together: Look out of the window on a clear night and count the stars you can see. Find a star that seems to twinkle. On another night, see whether the moon has changed its shape. Draw the kite of four stars and add the fifth one. Leave a small lamp on for someone who comes home late.

For a reading group, each person can choose one Day and tell the others about its place and its saying. The group can make a map of the thirty nights on a large sheet of paper and draw the little house in the middle.

The People in This Book

Pim is a firefly who lives at the little house. He zooms, spins and laughs, and his light blinks yellow in the dark. He finds Nell in the mint and helps her all the way home.

Nell is a little star who falls into the garden and cannot find her place. Her light is white. She sleeps in a teacup bed by the lamp and keeps small gifts on the windowsill.

Grandma Ada lives in the little house and leaves a lamp on in the window every night. June is her granddaughter. June asks questions, writes them down, and wants to know what is true.

The Night Wind carries Pim and Nell to places where it is night, and always brings them home before morning. The old owl lives at the end of the garden and watches Nell go home.

Friends from the first nights: a fox in the hot desert, a hare in the snowy forest, the sea turtles on the island beach, a shepherd in the mountain meadows, the frogs in the rice fields, a boy on a town rooftop, a zebra on the grassland and the bats in the rainforest.

Friends who show what is known: Tess with her telescope on the hilltop, Edda by the lighthouse, Ivo in the harbor, Bea the old firefly, Rosa and her father by the lake, Tomas the baker, Sil the white fox on the north ice, Tup and her grandfather on the south ice, Lina and her grandfather on the high plain, Hollis in the orchard hills, Mira and her father on the lake island, and Berta at the mountain hut.

Friends near the end of the journey: Otto, who sweeps the streets at the edge of a town, and a badger on the misty hills who knows how to wait for the clouds to pass.