Touched by the Sun

This isn’t the Orwell essay, I’ll post that tomorrow or Thursday. Quite the opposite: this is to announce a children’s book I wrote, illustrated by a fantastic artist, Elizabeth Carrington. The title of the book is Touched by the Sun. Here the description on the back cover:

This is a story that validates children’s innate knowledge that we live in an animate universe, that we are not alone as the sole subjects of this world. In this story, the sun is a being. Not a human being in the form of the sun, but a being in its own right with whom a human can have an authentic connection.

The simplicity of a mundane afternoon of a little girl and her father ends with a hidden delight. The intricate illustrations are arranged carefully to synchronize with the unfolding of this magic. The book is destined to be loved and cherished by children and parents for all time.

I composed this story as a bedtime story for my son Cary when he was 3, and test-drove it on some other children too. It is gentle in tone and a little ambiguous in meaning. It leaves the door open both to mundane and magical interpretations. I think it is best suited for children age 2-6. Older children might enjoy it too in the right moments. The paintings really are gorgeous. I also want to thank Patsy Eisenstein (my former wife and close collaborator) for her elegant layout and design of the book.

We published it ourselves. The easiest purchase option at this point is Amazon or Barnes & Noble. You can order it from bookstores by the ISBN number (9780977622238), but it will be much more expensive that way. We looked at other publishing options, but they involved prohibitive complexities of print runs, warehousing, and distribution. I know a lot of my readers are boycotting Amazon, and I well understand the reasons. But in this case, it felt like the right thing to do in order to bring this beautiful book before the eyes of children.