Customer Reviews

Night Cars

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a WONDERFUL bedtime book. One of the best around. The reviewer from Horn Books (who said that the book has badly rhymed verse) clearly has no appreciation for any but the most trivial and obvious rhymes (e.g. night and light). It's all in how you read it. In a British/Canadian vernacular (the author is from Canada), "green" and "again" nearly rhyme in "engines roar, light turns green, night cars on their way again". The text of this book is hypnotic and delightful (AND our child loves to hear it again and again).

Also, the illustrations are far from unexceptional. The artist Eric Beddows has a wonderful sense of detail and weaves visual themes throughout the book.

It's as good or better than "Train Song" by Diane Siebert and Mike Wimmer (Illustrator).

Horn Book is under the gross misimpression that poetry which doesnot rhyme is necessarily bad. Night Cars is an endearing story, with a wonderfully sonorous meter. The illustrations hold a toddler's attention. It's a perfect bedtime story for bad sleepers and their parents.

This is a very sweet book. I was going through some old books, and found this one. My son is almost 18 and about to go off to college. This is the only childhood book of his I saved. It had special meaning to me as a single Dad. The Dad in the book is patient and loving with his young son. The neighborhood presents a world of wonder, but the boy is secure with his Dad. Not many childrens books focus on the father son relationship. This one is a gem.

Like some of the other reviewers, this book was both of my sons' favourites, 20 and 17 years ago. We were cleaning up the childrens' books and this was the one book that they both insisted that would remain in the library. This book needs to be read out loud; there is something in the language that is lyrical-like a lullaby. This book was so loved, the boys went through three copies of the paper version. I am buying a hard cover version for a friend's new baby.

My toddler loves this and I find the verses pleasant to read, even after a year of reading it several times a week. There is a lot to look at in the pictures, and us parents get some wry amusement out of the lines about baby waking up repeatedly. (Our son didn't sleep through the night until he was nearly two years old.) I've been hoping to find similar titles by Teddy Jam!

My son is now eighteen. Seventeen years ago this was his favorite book. He made us read it to him over and over again. It was his favorite of the many books we read him. Perhaps because we live in an urban neighborhood and there aren't many books aimed at kids in urban neighborhoods. It was something he could relate to, and he loved the verses.

We lost it in a basement flood some years ago, and I'm about to buy another copy, just in case there ever are grandchildren. ;)

My two year old has really enjoyed this book. We blindly checked it out from the library on our last trip. I figured I can't go wrong- a bedtime story about cars, my car obsessed toddler will love it. I was right. He asks for it at nap time and bed time every day. I've added it to our wish list, but I may have to buy it the day its due back to the library! It's true that the poetry isn't perfect in rhyme or meter, but there are plenty of books out that provide this. Night Cars is a great introduction to the rest of what poetry is.

I don't know where this crummy horn reviewer is coming from, but our son loved this book and heard it read to him (willingly! eagerly!) about a zillion times. It is just a sweet little gem of a bedtime book, and the illustrations are wonderful - very evocative of urban/residential streetlife and what you see from your two-flat window. Highly recommended (and muchly missed - our son's doing his own "bedtime reading" now....).

This is a darling versed poem/story with loads of rhythm and great illustrations. My 2-yr old makes me read it nightly and can recite most of it on his own!