Firenze is a firefly that does not like her light. Her mother tells her it is what makes her special but she disagrees. She tries hard to hide her light even though others discourage it.

Even as an adult reading stories about what makes a person, animal, or insect special hits a note for me. As a human, I think we all want what we don’t have. Firenze has a light she would rather not have because she sees it (at first) as a negative. We always want what we can not have and then realize that we want what we did have.

I think it is a good story but kinda peters out in the end. Strong message but the realization at the end of the book is just unrememberable.

The art is beautiful and cute. It really helps tell the story. I would recommend this for kids ages 4 and up. I would absolutely read more from this author. ( )

I loved this book because of the illustrations. The illustrator made the pictures look like they were actually glowing just like Firenze's light because she was a firefly. The author used the glowing effect to make the pictures pretty, she used light whites and yellows, and she even used the glowing effect for emphasis. Some of the important words or phrases were illustrated to look like they were glowing as well such as the word "shine", when referring to how Firenze should let her gift shine. I also liked this book because the characters had clever names. For example, Firenze's friend the gnat was named Gnatalie, and Firenze was named that because she was a firefly. The big idea of this book was not to hide who you are. Firenze kept trying to cover up her light and she kept running into problems, when she let her unique light shine and accepted it, it was beautiful and her friends loved it! ( )