What’s your favourite time of the day? For many people, dawn and dusk probably come to mind, thanks to the reliably spectacular twice-daily ‘show’ brought to us by the Earth’s orbit around the sun, i.e. sunrise and sunset. There’s something inexplicably magical and hopeful about watching as the first rays of the sun illuminate the pitch-dark sky; conversely, there’s also something reassuringly soothing about the sun dipping below the horizon, muting the bright blue sky and gradually turning it orangey-red, then black as night.

In fact, the latter has even inspired this aptly titled picture book, Dusk, which follows a boy, his dog and the boy’s grandfather as they take a long stroll — first to a river bank and then back through the city streets — on one cold December afternoon.

Written and illustrated by the amazing Uri Shulevitz, in the style of his Caldecott Honor book Snow, this book manages to capture the essence of what happens at dusk and the beauty of a city after “nature’s lights go out”.

The spectacular illustrations are the deserving highlights here, but the concise yet playfully observant text complements them well. A beautiful book that celebrates the magic of dusk as well as the importance and beauty of a city’s lights.