Elsa and the Night

 In a very poetic way, Elsa and the Night tells the story of an extraordinary friendship.

Can one make friends with the night? In this story, Elsa can! How, may you ask, could someone even meet the night? Well, one day Elsa is sitting at her kitchen table and, because she is bored, counting the raisins in her cereal. She then suddenly hears a sound coming from under the sofa. When she investigates and catches the thing making the noise, she realizes that it’s ­neither an animal nor a ghost. It’s the night.

Because Elsa winds up hiding the night in her cookie jar—and giving it a few of her raisins—the day outside doesn’t end. When she takes the night out of its hiding place, it has the chance to hear her talk about her adventures with her friend, an elephant named Olaf. Elsa tells the night that she is very sad because Olaf got sick and no ­medicine was able to help him. The night not only listens to Elsa, but also accompanies her on a heartwarming and moving journey where it cares for her, protects her, and finally carries her through the town in its arms. 

Born in Sweden in 1976, Jöns Mellgren is an author, illustrator, and filmmaker. In 1999, he published his first children’s picture book called Night in the Jungle. This debut was followed by Mustafa and the Storm in 2009 and Rufus in the Underworld in 2010. With Elsa and the Night, Mellgren has added another beautifully poetic picture book to his triptych.