Lucy and the Dark
Author:
Melinda Szymanik
Illustrator:
Vasanti Unka
Publisher:
Picture Puffin
ISBN:
9780143778011
Date published:
15 August 2023
Pages:
32
Format:
Paperback
RRP:
$21.00
When Lucy makes friends with the Dark she discovers a new and exciting world - but the world is about to discover what it's like without the Dark! A funny and enjoyable bedtime story with a glow-in-the dark cover to encourage lights out!
From an award-winning author and illustrator comes this delightful story about a child who faces her fears and makes friends with the Dark. They go on a wild nocturnal adventure together - but what happens to everyone else when the Dark has run away?
‘I’m Dark,’ said the voice. ‘It’s all right if you don’t like me. Nobody does. Everyone is too afraid. Just close your eyes and by morning I’ll be gone.’
Dark heaved a sigh.
One night, Lucy befriends the Dark and zooms away with it on an adventure to explore all the wonderful things that happen when the Dark is around. But back home, everyone else is discovering that they really do miss the Dark after all. Can Lucy and Dark be convinced to return?
From the creators of My Elephant is Blue comes this gorgeous, funny story about why we should ALL make friends with the Dark. It even has a surprise at lights out in the form of a glow-in-the-dark cover!
About the author:
Born when the Beatles were big, Melinda Szymanik’s early ambitions to be a pirate and a time traveller didn’t pan out. She decided she would write these careers into stories instead and set about becoming an author. Writing is a long apprenticeship, however, and it wasn’t until 2002 that she had her first story accepted for publication. Melinda describes the author’s life as rather like traversing the Himalayas. Reaching the top is only ever a brief experience before one must head on down the other side again and onto attempting the next mountain.
Melinda writes picture books, short stories and novels for children and young adults. She has won a number of awards for her work - her picture book, The Were-Nana, won the New Zealand Post Children’s Choice Award in 2009 and was shortlisted for the 2010 Sakura Medal. Her novel, A Winter's Day in 1939, won Librarian's Choice at the 2014 LIANZA Awards and her picture book, Fuzzy Doodle, was a 2017 White Raven Selection.
In 2023, she was awarded the Michael King Writers Centre Shanghai Residency.
Melinda lives in Auckland with her family and loves watching movies, eating out with her favourite people and travelling abroad when the stars are aligned. She strongly believes that you can never have too many books and you can never be too kind.
About the illustrator:
Vasanti Unka is an award-winning writer, designer and illustrator noted for the originality of her storytelling, her riotously colourful and inventive illustrations and the gorgeous design and production of her picture books.
Vasanti is the illustrator of Hill & Hole by Kyle Mewburn, which was shortlisted for the Best Picture Book award at the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Hill & Hole won the LIANZA Russell Clark Award the same year and was also the first children's book to win the Gerard Reid Award for Best Book at the PANZ Book Design Awards.
The Boring Book (Puffin 2013), which Vasanti wrote, illustrated and designed, was named the 2014 New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year and also took out the Best Picture Book Award category. It also won international acclaim with its inclusion in the 2014 White Ravens Catalogue and in 2016 was named an IBBY Honour Book for the excellence of its illustrations.
Stripes! No, Spots!, published by Puffin in 2015 and described by poet Paula Green as 'scrumptious in every way', was lauded as a 2016 Storylines Notable Picture Book and was simultaneously published in the UK and US.
Who Stole the Rainbow?, a humorous, genre-spanning scientific mystery-thriller for children about how rainbows appear and disappear, was published in 2018. It was a finalist for the Best Picture Book category of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2019.
I am the Universe, published in 2020, was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults Russell Clark Award for Illustration 2021 and won the 2021 NZSA Heritage Literary Award and the NZ Booklovers Award for Best Children’s Book. I am the Universe went on to win the PANZ Book Design Awards Best Children's Book 2021 and was a finalist in the Best Typography category.
In August 2021, Vasanti was also awarded the Arts Foundation Mallinson Rendel Laureate Award for Illustration. Vasanti lives in Auckland, New Zealand, where she juggles author, school visits, creative work, postgraduate study and numerous book projects.
