Review by New York Times Review
like most admirers of classic children's books, I have a healthy appreciation for "Goodnight Moon." Yet when I first encountered this group of similarly themed books, I found myself thinking instead of "Yertle the Hirtle." In that Seussian tale of amphibian ambition, the moon torments King Yertle by reminding him of his limitations: "But, while he was shouting, he saw with surprise/ That the moon of the evening was starting to rise/ Up over his head in the darkening skies." The moon's majestic, silent mockery sets a revolution in motion and, rather than wishing the king good night, it helps his subjects bid tyranny goodbye. Clearly the moon has an enviable dramatic range, hence its continuing role as a muse and major player in children's stories. The boy at the center of "Windows" looks a few years older than Peter, the young protagonist of Ezra Jack Keats's "The Snowy Day." But with his brown skin and red hooded jacket he still brings that venerable favorite to mind. His adventure begins "at the end of the day, before the town goes to sleep." Taking his dog for a stroll in "the almost-night," the boy beholds his community with a child's fanciful perspective. Julia Denos's prose, spare, evocative and spiced with an occasional, subtle rhyme, is very much in sync with the illustrator E. B. Goodale's mixed-media art. The buildings are mostly weathered and unspectacular, in the manner of a typical, perhaps working-class, neighborhood. But they are enlivened by their windows, bright golden rectangles providing glimpses of charming domestic scenes. "One window might be tall, with the curtains drawn," Denos writes, "or small, with a party inside." A two-page panorama of windows, with its charmingly framed miniature portraits of dancing couples, a pensive girl, a man at a piano, and the petallike blades of an electric fan, is particularly lovely. Denos and Goodale provide a touch of nostalgia in a pair of pals calling to each other from adjacent houses, stretching a string between two cans. The highlight of the boy's sojourn is the end, when he returns home to see his mother in the window, waiting for him. It's a reassuring moment in these times, when walking at night in a hoodie can have different, even troubling associations for a child of color. While the "bright and rounded" moon makes a cameo appearance in the endpapers of "Windows," it looms much larger in "Good Night, Planet." But we're getting ahead of the story. First we tag along while a little girl spends a joyous, exhausting day with her pet stuffed animal, Planet. At day's end, after the girl has fallen promptly to sleep, Planet slips out of bed and goes on an evening frolic. Planet's companions - Elliot the family dog, and Bradley, a friendly mouse - have a swinging good time with the house to themselves, enjoying cookies and people-free fellowship. A quest for the ultimate midnight snack leads to the moon hovering hugely over the backyard, "the biggest cookie ever." Liniers, a cartoonist by trade, shifts easily from single-panel scenes to as many as nine panels on a page. It's a fast-moving, richly imagined story that loses nothing in repeated readings. A fable about a stuffed animal that comes to life risks being a tedious cliché, but in Liniers's skillful hands, "Good Night, Planet" is anything but. "City Moon" follows a little boy and his mom out on an evening walk. Clad in cozy pajamas, the boy narrates their mission "to look for the moon." Their quarry ducks in and out of view behind tall buildings as the pair navigate their autumnal surroundings. They pass many people too busy to look for the moon, caught up in mailing letters, practicing trumpets in upstairs bedrooms, doing homework and buying groceries. Despite the presence of speeding cars and fire engines with wailing sirens, Blanca Gomez's illustrations create an atmosphere that is overwhelmingly quiet. Alongside them, Rachael Cole's prose unfolds at a measured pace that will ease young readers into a restful mood. Porch lights glow softly, and above the boy's head, stars are "glittery dots in the sky." As they accumulate, the details in the art exert an understated effect, from the Matisse-like birds floating beneath the clouds to the tiny sailboats on the boy's pajamas. And there's the moon itself, "bright and light and round." The endearing moppet featured in "La La La" may remind readers of a certain vintage of the titular star of "Frances FaceMaker," William Cole and Tomi Ungerer's 1963 bedtime story. That book's stubborn little protagonist sports a similar hairstyle and equally elastic expressions. Before we get to read a word, Jaime Kim's illustrations help us to understand that the girl is thoughtful and determined. This is more than a little helpful, as the language Kate DiCamillo's tiny heroine employs is minimal, though highly melodic. Singing as she dreams and schemes, the solitary girl devises a plan to climb to the moon. When her plan is thwarted, it appears as if the moon will taunt her much as it did our old friend King Yertle. But DiCamillo, a twotime Newbery Medal winner (for "The Tale of Despereaux" and "Flora & Ulysses"), resolves her tale in a hopeful twist that will not be revealed here. Kim ("Take Heart, My Child") has created sumptuous images, especially several pages awash in deep, rich purples, that suggest an expansive dreamscape where anything is possible. At the same time, DiCamillo's barelythere text gives the art space to breathe, leaving room for children to fill in the silences with their own boundless imaginations. JABARl ASIM'S next book for children, "A Child's Introduction to African-American History," will be published in January.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 12, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* As nighttime falls, a brown-skinned kid, who could be a boy or a girl, in a cheery red hoodie (surely an homage to Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day) takes a dog for a walk down a densely populated city street. In dusky building facades, glowing windows reveal snippets of life within, and with a lyrical, whispery tone, the narrative directly invites the reader, like the protagonist, to find delight and wonder in the neighborhood's activity. Goodale's arresting artwork does most of the heavy lifting here, with a sky progressing from the pale pastels just before sunset to the fiery orange and pink glow of a setting sun to the deep blues and purples of a darkening night. The cityscape is lively in front of Goodale's aqueous skies, and the variety of people quietly emphasizes the diversity of the child's neighborhood families prepare dinner, construction workers tidy up a site, couples take dance lessons, a yoga class stretches, and a pair of kids in neighboring houses talk on a tin-can telephone strung between their windows. It's a genial take on city life, which makes the neighborhood seem just as comforting as home, though the child's home just as luminescent as the windows he or she passes is surely the most comforting of all. Ideal bedtime reading and a gorgeously understated celebration of everyday enchantment.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-In this story, a boy of color dons a red hoodie, leashes his eager dog, and ventures out into the twilight, where the windows are "blinking awake as the lights turn on inside: a neighborhood of paper lanterns." Readers get to peer in at the small, diverse figures making dinner, throwing a party, dancing, even stretching tin cans on a string between houses to talk on the "phone." The brilliant colors of the changing sky connect to the illumination within-as if originating from the same source. Light and relationships envelop the journey in security and quiet joy: the child's mother watches as her son leaves, waves to a friend on a skateboard, and plays with his dog in the park. Memorable language contributes to the mood, as a raccoon is observed "taking a bath in squares of yellow light." The compositions are rendered in ink, watercolor, letterpress, and digital collage. Readers will want to revisit these pages of impressionistic trees, buildings that blur as they recede into the vanishing point, and captivating combinations of fully realized scenes with transparent objects outlined in delicate lines. The narrative ends with a quickening step toward the loved one waving behind the curtain-and a story shared in a snuggle. VERDICT This evocative portrait elevates an everyday routine to a wonder-filled walk of discovery. Perfect for one-on-one and small group sharing.-Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
At the end of the day, before the town goes to sleep / you can take a walk, out your door / into the almost-night. A brown-skinned child puts on a red hoodie and heads out to take the dog for a walk, mother watching protectively from the apartment window. This child, the you of the text, traverses a populous urban neighborhood, musing on the activities glimpsed through windows of buildings passed along the way: There might be a hug / or a piano / and someone might be learning to dance. After a few city blocks and some time at the dog park, the child arrives home again: You look at your window from the outside. / Someone you love is waving at you, / and you cant wait to go in. The book closes with mother and child curled up in a chair, reading a book together. The tone is contemplative, balanced by considerable action in the ink, watercolor, letterpress, and digital collage illustrations and a sense of vibrant life throughout. Carefully composed double-page spreads contain enough detail to intrigue but not overwhelm, and although the book becomes progressively darker as night falls, theres always a glow--from the spectacular sunset, from the many lit-up windows. Several recent picture books feature nighttime urban walks (The Way Home in the Night, rev. 7/17; City Moon, reviewed in this issue); this one stands out for its child protagonists independence, its matter-of-factly benign portrayal of a diverse neighborhood, the emotion conveyed by the language, and the stunningly atmospheric art. martha v. parravano (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Readers are invited to match their observant eyes with those of a child out for an evening walk.A young child of color puts on a red hoodie and goes for a walk in his neighborhood in the hours between sunset and bedtime. The neighborhood is mostly residential with two-story homes, apartment houses, and some small businesses. The family dog goes along as the child (referred to as "you" throughout in the second-person narrative) notes the animalsa cat and a raccoonthey pass by. The child notes the windows and what the people or animals that can be seen within their frames are doing; they may be playing an instrument or dancing or painting. At the end of the walk they go past a house with no lights on; its windows "leave you to fill them up with stories." Finally, home beckons, and child and mother curl up in a comfy chair for a bedtime story. Denos' story is quiet, thoughtful, and paced to the beat of a gentle rhythm. Debut illustrator Goodale's delicately detailed ink, watercolor, letterpress, and digital collage illustrations display palettes of the evening and night skies with beautifully nuanced shades of yellow, gold, and blue. The red-hooded child of color with dog can't help but recall Peter and Willie, and this book is a lovely, affirming follow-up. A warmhearted tale of a child, a dog, and their peaceful, friendly, and inviting neighborhood. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
