Toke is a baby trumpeter swan who was born in a marsh in the interior of Alaska. He learns that at the end of the summer, his family will have to migrate. Toke's story addresses the challenges of change during childhood and how they can be overcome.
These three vignettes belong to a page describing what Toke loved about his friends in the marsh, before he learns that he must eventually say goodbye to them.
The book ends when Toke and his siblings have grown enough to fly, with the cold winter days quickly approaching. The family departs the marsh together to find the sun again, with Toke seeing that good can come even through hard things. This two-page spread concludes the book.
In the interior of Alaska, the sun still shines past midnight, but as summer turns to autumn, the days get shorter again and a crispness returns to the air. To leverage this idea, the color palette of the pages in this book serves to reinforce the passage of time through the summer- a sort of count-down until the family's migration.
Pages 30-31, which are seen above, are a sudden pop of warmth as the family departs for their migration, symbolizing the good that has been brought about in Toke's life through adapting to change.