Night and Day

Some books just wow me! I audibly gasp when we discover what's inside. Sometimes it's because it's something I've been anticipating, sometimes it's because the story melts my heart, sometimes it's because the artwork is just incredible. But sometimes it's because the book is just so clever.

'Night and Day' by Julie Safirstein is a very clever book. Described as "A Big Book of Opposites" this book is so much more than a basic word primer. I don't know where to begin with explaining this one, but here goes...

This is an oversized book that is filled with opposite words: night and day, high and low, open and closed, as well as other basic vocabulary like numbers. But it goes beyond simple pictures to represent the concepts. It brings them to life. Truly. Colourful pop-ups, lift-the-flaps and cut-outs create an interactive book that is packed full of bold and modern graphics that will engage little ones with the concepts.

It starts quite simply with big, small, large, tiny with appropriately-sized coloured blobs on the top of flaps and similarly appropriately-sized objects underneath. Then numbers, with spots on top, numerals and fingers underneath alongside toddler-sized hands representing left and right (which BookBairn just loves to high-five). But then it starts to get cleverer: pages that pop right out to show objects that are outside and inside, in front and behind where children can literally reach through the pages to discover in 3D what the positional language really means. Next, a circle that slides to the top of the page to represent being alone and then to the bottom to join it's fellow shape friends to represent together. Another sliding circle moves from 'next to' to 'in the middle' to 'far' allowing little hands to bring these concepts to life. With braille-style bumps little fingers can explore 'straight' versus 'curved' and pop-ups that show above and below. And just to outsmart me (genuinely took me a day to figure it out) it says 'open' on the final page (I couldn't figure out where it's partner 'closed' was) and then of course you turn the back cover and close the book finding the word 'closed' on the back cover. Genius.


This book gets read/played with over and over again. It's too big for the shelf to perhaps it has an advantage sitting beside all the other books but more likely it's because it's pretty awesome! This really is a book like no other. And would be a brilliant addition to any child's bookshelf (or floor in our case!)