Bat in the Dining Room [Library Binding]

Dragonwagon Crescent (Author), S. D. Schindler (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up

When a bat flies into a hotel restaurant, Melissa comes to the rescue.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3. It would be difficult to imagine a less poetic theme than that of a bat accidentally trapped in the posh dining room of a summer resort. However, Dragonwagon has woven an evocative, lyrical prose poem in this tale of one frantic flying mammal and one quiet young girl who really cares what happens to it. While the excited, well-heeled patrons escape to the lobby, and the tuxedo-garbed staff run for brooms and other weapons, Melissa remains alone in the dining room. Unhurriedly, and with calm resolve, she lures the bat to an emergency door, where it flies into the starry night to freedom. The spare text combines internal rhyme and interesting word juxtapositions to create the appropriate mood. The contrast of uproar and quiet, agitation and calm combine to build a story from one brief incident. Schindler's beautiful illustrations, a combination of colored pencil and watercolor on pastel paper, become a harmonious complement to the text. The artist has juxtaposed the luminous views of a summer night on a lake and the almost-deserted dining room with cartoonlike portraits of the hysterical summer guests, overly dressed and coifed. His careful rendering of the terrified bat in full flight captures the essence of the animal's beauty and predicament. Not since Janell Cannon's Stellaluna (Harcourt, 1993) has there been a more attractive bat epic. "Batman and Robin" can wait; young readers will have a much better time at this summer place.?Martha Rosen, Edgewood School, Scarsdale, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

``A bat flew into the dining room,/at the hotel restaurant by the lake./Mistake.'' Dragonwagon (Alligators and Others All Year Long, 1993, etc.) pens a lilting, loosely rhymed text about a bat who finds itself in an alien indoor environment, the human pandemonium that ensues, and the observant little girl who imagines how the bat must feel. She sensibly opens the emergency exit door to let it fly free, ``a moving breeze of joy against the sky.'' Schindler's detailed colored pencil and watercolor illustrations contrast the peace of a summer night--moonlight shining on the lake and on the brown-shingled walls of a grand old lake resort--with the brightly lit frenzy inside, where hysterical diners scramble to escape the bat. Only Melissa holds still and keeps her wits about her. Her identifying with the frightened bat will draw readers in, and her pleasure at its escape provides a satisfying conclusion. A surprising, lovely book. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Library Binding
• Publisher: Cavendish Children's Books (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761450076
• ISBN-13: 978-0761450078
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,173,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Crescent Dragonwagon, the author of the James Beard Award-winning Passionate Vegetarian, The Cornbread Gospels, Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook, many children's books, and two novels, has just completed Bean by Bean.

Dragonwagon is a Southern Yankee: though born in New York, for 18 years she was innkeeper/chef/co-owner of Dairy Hollow House, an acclaimed country inn in the Ozark Mountain community of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where she resided for 36 years. But, since 2002, she has lived in Westminster West, Vermont.

Dragonwagon has the distinction of having prepared beans and cornbread for a president (Bill Clinton), titled royalty (Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia), a world-renowned feminist (Betty Friedan) and Marilyn Monroe's first biographer (Maurice Zolotow). She teaches two writing workshops, Deep Feast: Writing the World through Food, and Fearless Writing, around the world (the latter, she teaches once a year, in the Whole Enchilada version, from her own home hilltop in the Green Mountains). She has appeared on Good Morning America, Today, TVFN, & CNN.

She lives, writes, and cooks in the 1795 farmhouse which once belonged to her aunt, at which she spent summers when a child. She shares the place with her partner, filmmaker David Koff, and, often, numerous well-fed friends. An ardent gardener, she's currently growing 4 different varieties of bush beans, and 5 of pole beans. .. under the supervision of her large and amiable tabby cat, Cattywhompus (who can usually be found rolling in the catmint).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best read-aloud books ever!, May 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bat in the Dining Room (Library Binding)

My daughter received this book as a gift when she was just 4. As a child who loves language and animals, she was thrilled with the lilting lyric poetry and the tale of a bat caught in the tourist-filled dining room. The main character "strange Melissa" is appealing in its originality, sensitivity and all too rare celebration of a female heroine. Any observant and intuitive child would find her an especially sympathetic character. That being said, in my opinion, the poetry is the reason we return to the book again and again. Crescent Dragonwagon has distinguished herself with her flowing verse that is not only sophisticated but delightful to the ear. We consider it on par with David Kirk (of Miss Spider fame) and Dr. Seuss. Enjoy!

5.0 out of 5 stars How many stars can I give this book !!!, October 30, 2011

By 

Lily White (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bat in the Dining Room (Paperback)

I have been going through the annual clean up and rearrangement of my 2000+ kids books, and not only ran across this one again but sat down and read it again.
(Generally I buy for the illustrations and even have my books alphabetized by illustrator. Schindler is in my Top 25 list. Schindler is in top form here, but then he almost
always is. So I shall talk about the author. I have rarely read a children's book that is so thoughtful, so poetic, so important. Wow.

The gist of the story is that many people are dining in a very nice dining room at a hotel resort. Then a bat arrives. At first it is unnoticed, but when someone does finally see it,
the shout goes up, everyone runs out of the dining room (except for little Melissa), the maitre 'd throws up his hands in alarm, confers with cooks, begs everyone to come back. They will
take care of the matter in no time. And in fact, all believe that the maitre'd has successfully killed the bat, and life can go on for the vacationers.

Melissa, however, knows better. She had stayed behind, hiding under the table cloth on their table. She sees the bat still flapping on the floor, "and she alone thought how the bat might
feel." Melissa was the weird one in school, and Melissa was the one in the large family of her brothers and her sisters, and her cousins, and her uncles, and her aunts (apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan) who decided to commune with nature on this trip more often than communing with the relatives. "She noticed, quiet, a thousand things or more. A cardinal on a telephone wire,
that the third swing on the left was higher, a padlocked gate, some lichen on a stone, a high-up bird's nest, which she left alone."

When the rest of the crowd believes it is safe to come back in, and also around the same time, notices that Melissa is missing, they enter into the dining room finding the bat still alive.
The cry went up: "Shoot it! Hit it! Throw a knife! But Melissa crouched there in the dark, saying 'Come on, bat'.

And so she opens the emergency door, and the bat is free.

I want to tell you the entire story, but that is probably against the rules. I have to say it is one of the most spiritually beautiful books I have in my collection. It has
brought tears to my eyes. No child should be left behind without this story in his/her life.

I am stunned to see that it appears to be no longer in print and that only one other person has reviewed this book. I can only believe that it must be because when it was first printed in
1997 Amazon was not yet well known or well visited.

Note to publishers: Please bring it back.