The Shortest Day

by Susan Cooper
illustration by Carson Ellis

Cooper’s poem, originally written for the theater, speaks of long ago preparation rituals for the “shortest day” when communities would light fires and candles against the long dark ahead. They would rejoice at the coming of the light and with it the hope for the future. Ellis’s evocative illustrations capture both the timelessness of the rituals and the timeliness of the message for today’s world.

The Shortest Day. Text © 2019 by Susan Cooper. Illustrations © 2019 by Carson Ellis.
Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.