PORTLAND, Maine — Often when children are young they are afraid of the dark, but a Maine author and illustrator wants kids to explore the night sky instead of fearing it.
"I want people to understand there is wilderness out there, and there is wilderness within us, and we need to be connected to it," creator Jamie Hogan said.
Hogan is a freelance artist who has illustrated more than a dozen books, but "Skywatcher" is only the second one she has also written.
Inspired by an article in the Portland Press Herald by Mary Pols entitled 'Let There Be Dark,' which outlined an effort to protect the light-pollution free sky in the eastern half of the U.S. with a 'dark sky' designation, Hogan began to explore the idea for a children's book.
In Maine, we are spoiled with a night sky that is often void of so-called light pollution which drowns out the stars and planets, making them hard or near impossible to see. But in many cities and states across the U.S., the glare of man-made lights makes evenings too bright to explore the stars.
Hogan spent close to a year researching light pollution and learning more about astronomy, the stars and how integral dark nights are to animals and humans.
Skywatcher is about a young man named Tamen who lives in a city with his mother and learns about the stars from his comic book. His mother takes him camping, and there he is able to gaze at the Milky Way and constellations. When he returns to the city, he can't see them anymore, but he now knows they are there.
From her home studio on Peaks Island, Hogan focused on the illustrations created first with pastels and then digitally enhanced them as her story underwent several drafts.
"I think we need to realize that the world is bigger than us. It's important that we remember that it's our window on the universe," Hogan explained.
In the back of her book, Hogan gives a lot of information and advice on how children can become skywatchers and help mitigate light pollution.
"We spend a lot of time just looking at a device ... and we need to look a little farther than that and understand we are part of a galaxy," Hogan said.
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