Ray

Ray is the somewhat charming story of a little lightbulb, named Ray, who has his world view expanded from the closet he brightens up in his day-to-day life to a much wider world when he is used as the light for a lantern on a camping trip.

The story, itself, is straightforward. Ray is the light source in a storage closet who gets a bit bored seeing the same things every day and spending a lot of time in the dark. But one day he goes on a camping adventure with a father and child and gets to see amazing and beautiful things he has never seen before, such as trees, streams, mountains, animals, the stars, and the biggest light bulb ever, aka the sun. Having now seen a bit of the bigger world, Ray is able to return to his storage closet and draw upon the memories of his adventure to get him through his dark days again.

The text is sweet with a sly bit of humour that adults or older readers will appreciate. I particularly enjoyed Ray’s trying to wrap his brain around the new things he was seeing by drawing parallels to the only things he has seen before, such as calling a stream a very long scarf or a mountain a giant vase.

I admit, as a reader, the ending felt a little sad and is reminiscent in some ways of Ikea’s iconic ‘Lamp’ ad. Ray returns to his somewhat lonely existence in the closet (even his one ‘friend’, Tom the spider, has left him behind). While we are made to believe that Ray now has his memories to keep him company and entertained, it still feels a bit melancholic. However, perhaps that is in its own way a valuable lesson to impart on children - that we need our good memories to help us get through the darker times.

Ray has simple yet lovely illustrations that grow in depth and complexity as the little lightbulb leaves his closet and ventures out into the natural world. The full-page spread illustrations of the wilderness with animals peeking out, the night sky full of stars, and a bright and happy sunrise are particularly compelling and rich.

Ultimately, Ray is a book that imparts a valuable lesson about the importance of expanding your worldview and experiences to lead you to a more fulfilling life, and it will be appreciated by younger children.

As a final note, one area where this book falls flat is something that still seems to be lacking in many children’s books - gender diversity. All four of the characters in the book (Ray, Tom the spider, the bearded father figure, and a young child) are given male pronouns or present visually as traditionally male. It continues to baffle me why book writers, editors, and publishers continue to allow this to happen for no discernible reason, and I always find it incredibly disappointing that girls or non-binary people are not represented.