Sun Wishes

by Patricia Storms, Milan Pavlovic (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A gorgeous companion to Patricia Storms and Milan Pavlovic's Moon Wishes, Sun Wishes is a balm for the eyes. This celebration of the sun follows its journey throughout the sky, as it's seen around the world. Sun Wishes is a special hybrid of non-fiction and art.

A joyful celebration of our daily companion, the sun, as it shines around the world.

“If I were the sun, I would sing a gentle morning song to wake my slumbering friends.” So begins this fresh and colorful collaboration between author Patricia Storms and illustrator Milan Pavlović, the creative team behind 2019’s beloved bedtime story, Moon Wishes.

Join the sun in this gentle imagining of its travels across the sky, lighting up our gloomiest days, celebrating a bountiful harvest, and delighting in the diversity of life around the world. 

Milan Pavlović’s vibrant watercolor illustrations complement Patricia Storm’s jubilant text. Young readers will be warmed by the sun’s wishes as they spread through the story, inspiring curiosity, gratitude, and the irresistible urge to step outside!

 

Key Text Features

illustrations

 

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.4
Identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773064505
Publisher:	Groundwood Books
Publication date:	05/01/2022
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,030,777
Product dimensions:	9.70(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

PATRICIA STORMS has worked as a short-order cook, a library technician, and a graphic designer, but her favorite thing to do by far is to make books for kids! She wrote and illustrated The Pirate and the Penguin and the much-loved Never Let You Go. She is the author of The Dog’s Gardener, illustrated by Nathalie Dion, and collaborated with her husband, Guy Storms, to write Moon Wishes, illustrated by Milan Pavlović. Patricia lives with Guy in Toronto, Ontario, in a cozy old house overflowing with books.

MILAN PAVLOVIĆ lives in Toronto with his family. When he is not illustrating picture books, drawing or playing the ukulele, he is teaching visual communication and illustration at OCAD Universityand Seneca College. He has illustrated over fifty children's books including Son of Happy by Cary Fagan, The Boy Who Invented the Popsicle by Anne Renaud, and Moon Wishes by Guy and Patricia Storms. He created the lyrical wordless picture book Sonata for Fish and Boy.

Editorial Reviews

An exuberant story.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

A poetic exploration of how the sun could inspire a child's appreciation of the natural world and life in general.

Booklist

Storms's meditative, poetic text contrasts with Pavlović's lively mixed-media illustrations.

Horn Book

The sun's warm wishes will inspire young readers' curiosity, gratitude, and also spur them to step outside to enjoy its light.

CBC Books

Beautiful, imaginative, and just pure fun.

Midwest Book Review

2022-02-09
The sun sends the world and its inhabitants warm thoughts for peace, unity, and positivity.

A smiling sun shines down on each double-page spread, just as the moon did in Storms and Pavlović’s previous book, Moon Wishes (2019). Using the refrain “if I were the sun,” the narrator describes the sun’s movement from sunrise to sunset throughout the seasons of the year. The sun is personified as a serene explorer, muse, and comforter who lovingly wakes the world with “a gentle morning song” and ends each day with peaceful rest. In between rising and setting, the sun explores “every corner of this wondrous earth.” Alas, the narrative is disappointingly disjointed—the sun flits among pages that depict African wildlife, a school of smiling fish swimming up toward the sun, and a bear fishing in a river. Looking at the world from the sun’s point of view, the narrator is better able to “delight in all our differences”—the accompanying illustration shows 11 disparate birds perched in the same tree. Meanwhile, human diversity is portrayed on other pages: Happy children—some with brown skin, others with pink skin—make snow angels; a man using a wheelchair sits at a harvest table; and an Asian-presenting man wearing a conical hat walks across marshland. Pavlović’s loose mixed-media, colored-pencil, and ink illustrations use warm colors and are as consistently uplifting as Storms’ pretty but desultory word pictures. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A sweet and well-meaning lesson in personification and metaphor, but this picture book fails to shine. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews