NIGHT FLIGHT

A child embarks on a nocturnal journey of reconnection.

In a bedroom filled with images of dinosaurs, stars, and clouds, a smiling, bespectacled older adult tucks a youngster in. On the child’s bedside table sits a family photograph of the little one with two parents, who have apparently gone out for the night. Unable to sleep (“because of something I lost”), the child spots a pterosaur flying in the sky. Waiting “like a light left on for those you love,” the young narrator rushes to the window, then leaps atop the winged creature; they fly above a darkened city aglow with lights and over a snow-blanketed park and a river. Our protagonist spots a boat below; on the bow stand the child’s parents. The winged creature swoops down and picks them up, and they all fly so high that they wake the moon, who says hi. The pterosaur’s dips and loops cause the youngster to fall, landing, eyes wide open, back in bed, surrounded by the little one’s loving family: “I found the light I lost tonight.” Uchendu’s sweeping, blue-tinged aerial views have a hazy softness, pairing effectively with Moore’s gently contemplative narration for a portrait of a youngster creatively processing uncertainty. All main characters present Black; the parents both appear male.

Tenderly reassuring.