The Night Flower

An A4 sized book of amazing quality, The Night Flower cover is startlingly beautiful, with a huge, gorgeous white flower with background flowers and insects highlighted in gold. This is a non-fiction picture book that deserves to be in every home, every school, for it is a breathtakingly beautiful telling of an amazing natural phenomenon.  Set in the Arizona desert, the tale is that of flowers that bloom on a tall cactus, lasting just one night. The sun sets over the Arizona desert, where the magical flowers of the Saguaro cactus bloom. The pure white waxy blossoms of this cactus king of the desert, often over 12 m high and with uplifted arms, attract mammals and insects from miles around, to celebrate the flowering and sip from the flowers.    … “the thick, fruity fragrance fills the night sky,” as bob cats, pack rats, howling mice and ringtails, brown bats, birds and bees, moths and butterflies gather around this flowering wonder. Every page is a delight, full of birds, beasts and flowers; the rhyming text, four lines to a page, edges us slowly nearer and nearer to nightfall. All through the hours of darkness, the desert is alive with creature activity, till dawn breaks and the life of each flower is over. “Soon calm will resume and the desert will rest, but the busy saguaro is not finished yet. Its flowers will close and a red fruit will grow….. and soon there will be a brand new saguaro.” (SA-WAH-RO) Turn this final page of the story and there is information about the cactus itself, and a very clearly illustrated and annotated life-cycle, followed by a page of information and pictures of all the creatures mentioned in the text. Finally comes a glossary. Based on a real-life tale, this book sent me scurrying to research the saguaro and its history, it having been designated the state flower for Arizona in 1931. Having been selected to illustrate Carol Ann Duffy’s The King of Christmas, Lara Hawthorne is surely an illustrator bound for much acclaim, as well as being a talented writer. Do seek out this stunning book.