Ning and the Night Spirts by Adriena Fong

2023    

Ning is shy and finds being with people very difficult.  He goes to the forest so that he can be alone. There he meets and befriends the night spirits.  The night spirits and the humans have misunderstood each other. They have been afraid of one another. Ning understands what’s happening: “Ning knew the townspeople were just afraid of what they didn’t understand.” To rectify the situation Ning has to force himself to ask the others for help. He is surprised and delighted to find out how much people are willing to help.     

This is a conventional picture book in that more story is packed into the pictures.    Adriena  Fong here skilfully portrays Ning’s emotions in the pictures.

The hardback edition has a very tactile cover. The picture on it is very busy.

The cover pages at both ends of the book have a map of Ning’s town.

The text is written in a simple font and new readers may manage to decode it without too much difficulty. 

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