While we humans are yawning as the sky brightens, or sighing as the world grows dark, what’s happening outside during these transitional times of day? As author Marcie Flinchum Atkins reveals in her immersive, poetic When Twilight Comes: The Animals and Plants That Bring Dawn and Dusk to Life, crepuscular creatures are busily foraging, hunting, flying, swimming and romping.
In the book’s summertime Virginia setting, “The darkness dwindles into a pastel sky as squash bees zip around zucchini, pollinate pumpkins, wiggle as buds open anew.” When the day wanes, “the opossum . . . saunters back toward her den, her nose to the ground for a fallen apple for her young before the sun’s shine dims her sight.” Morning glories greet the day, and evening primroses usher in sunset.
Illustrator Michelle Morin’s gasp-worthy watercolor and gouache paintings depict all of this and more in striking spreads glowing with color and rife with detail, such as a dewy spiderweb that “glistens in the glory of sunrise,” or the rich pinks and oranges of a “dawn-shimmered pond” through which a beaver paddles. With appealingly contemplative prose, stunning art and informative back matter, When Twilight Comes expertly melds inspiration and education while fostering connection to the beings that share our world.
