The Summer Night

Years and years of sleepy Summer Nights
Charlotte's book The Summer Night was originally called The Night When Mother Was Away, and was illustrated under that title by Reisie Lonette. It was published thus by Lothrop in 1958. But in 1974, this timeless story about a restless child on a hot summer night received a new life along with a new and simpler title; illustrated by Ben Shecter, it was republished by Harper in 1974 (see cover left). How timeless is this quiet story? Come take a look at a story --- just one --- behind this story.
Unlike many of the stories on this site, it is not about how Charlotte came to write the book. Instead, it is a story --- a very small one --- about wide-awake children, and evenings, and open windows, and a small town, and readers, and writers, and parents, and children, and authors. And it is a story that took place recently --- in the spring of 2000.
A summer night...
It was an unseasonably hot May night in the small Hudson River community in which Charlotte has lived for many years, and a little boy whom she had never met was having trouble sleeping. That little boy is Alec, and here is a picture of him reading The Summer Night. She didn't know him, and he didn't know her --- but his parents, Ara Guzelimian and Janet Clough read him a story. And after reading that story, they looked in the telephone book, and discovered that its author had a fax number listed.
...via fax
The next day the following note was in Charlotte's fax machine:

That same morning...
Charlotte faxed the family back:
How many, many lives have Charlotte's books been part of, just like this, in ways she (like all children's book authors of a certain caliber) cannot even guess?
P.S. What the reviewers said about this book
"Charlotte Zolotow achieves both a lulling sense of the night's still beauty, and of the security of the relationship between father and child. Recommended." --- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books