Night Has Come/Alla ska sova

When the skies turn pink at dusk, it’s time for children to get ready for bed. Or maybe not? Let yourself be transported to a balmy summer’s night and visit cows, lambs and other creatures great and small that aren’t quite ready to go to sleep. Not until night has fallen is everyone ready to close their eyes and drift off.

A song by Astrid Lindgren that first appeared in the story The Children of the Noisy Village has now been transformed into a bedtime story alongside wonderful illustrations by Marit Törnqvist.

Night Has Come is a classic lullaby that first appeared in Astrid Lindgren’s book, The Children in Noisy Village.
Marit Törnqvist was first inspired to illustrate this beautiful lullaby when a school choir sang Night Has Come at Astrid Lindgren’s funeral. “The song really touched me, not just because I was sad about Astrid’s passing, but because she managed to capture the whole world with those few words,” Marit says. “It was as though our childhood memories came together in this book.” The illustrations are inspired by the Swedish landscape, the unique summer light and the feeling of being a tiny element of a vast universe

Marit and Astrid worked closely together during the 1990s, collaborating on several picture books, including A Calf for Christmas, The Day Adam got Mad, In the Land of Twilight and The Red Bird. Having first become friends in Marit’s childhood, they remained in close contact until Astrid’s death in 2002. They shared a love for the landscape of Småland, where they spent childhood summers (albeit sixty years apart), and this strongly influences Marit’s illustrations for Astrid’s writing. The light, the colours and the materials reflect the characters’ feelings, creating a universal world that every child can enjoy.