THE LIGHTS & TYPES OF SHIPS AT NIGHT

One of NPR’s Best Books of 2020

You may have heard of ships. You may have also heard of the sea and the night. But did you realize there’s nothing more beautiful than a ship and its lights on the sea at night? In warm and witty prose, this picture book’s narrator asks the reader to consider the splendor of glowing lights cast by ships on a shimmering waterway. Meet a trawler, a steamship, a RORO, an exploratory vessel and more across richly illustrated pages, alive with the glowy, otherworldly nighttime scenes of boats as seen from a child’s perspective.

Praise for The Lights & Types of Ships at Night

“Imagine Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors turned into a boat book for preschoolers. Void and light and the blur of water melt into the ultimate bedtime fare.”
—NPR Best Books of 2020

“We chase the idea of beauty across the world, ship by ship, culture by culture, light by light… Each of Dills’s double-page images show(s) us a glowing, soft-focussed wonder.”
—The New York Times, Brian Selznick

“You may have heard of Dave Eggers. You may also have heard of this book, soaked in candy-colored lights and childlike hyperbole in service of beauty. Eggers takes the rudimentary idea of a picture book about boats and turns it into a collection of nighttime images that seep off the page into your dreams. Unforgettable.”
—Betsy Bird, Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library, and the former Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library

“Eggers’s engaging grandiosity, wry humor, and pitch-perfect pacing is seamlessly matched by Annie Dills’s luminescent illustrations.”
—Lisa Von Drasek, Curator, University of Minnesota, Children’s Literature Research Collections

“With infectious enthusiasm the reader is led on a luminescent global journey from one shimmering seascape to the next. Seldom is the hidden magic in everyday things highlighted so brightly. All while learning a thing or two about the diversity of ships across the world.”
—Derek Spinei, Archivist, Los Angeles Maritime Museum

“The first boats only had the stars and moon to light the way at night. They are still there, you can see them watching over the amazing scenes that leap off the pages in Dave Eggers’s new picture book about boats. Annie Dills’s creations will light up anyone’s imagination, where boats will take on a new life, after dark.”
—David Payne, Curator-Historic Vessels, Australian National Maritime Museum