On a starry night a girl and her mother climb the hill above their farm, watching and listening to the natural world around them.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Like Jane Yolen's Owl Night , this gentle, poetic picture book intently focuses on the sounds and visual beauty of nature as experienced by a child on nighttime walks with her parents. The narrator climbs a hill "where nighthawks swoop / and the dark woods rattle with crickets and frogs." The child is frightened, until her mother lovingly points out the constellations and tells her how, when she was a child, her father and she "saw the northern lights, like brightly colored scarves, dance across the sky" and she "forgot to be afraid." By the time the girl's own father joins them, her fears, too, are allayed, and when he swings her into the air, she imagines herself riding both Cygnet and Pegasus. Kinsey-Warnock's ( The Canada Geese Quilt ) text, with its gem-like images and sensitive story, shines like the bright stars in McPhail's ( The Bear's Toothache ) dark, almost phosphorescent charcoal drawings. Bold swaths of purple, blue-green and red add mystery to his unusual landscapes. Both text and art imaginatively portray the fireflies that "blink and flicker like sparks / up into the sky" and the planets "spin by . . . like ribbon from a spool." Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K-Nightime, farm country, and a touch of fantasy are all elements of this poetic story meant to assuage a child's fears of the dark. "On a starry night, Mama and I climb the hill..." begins a young girl's description of the world that surrounds her family's rural home. Deer, owls, and coyotes are part of the Earth, while the Great Bear, Pegasus, and Cygnus the Swan are in the sky. When Papa comes up the hill to swing his daughter high in the air, she imagines that a swan and winged horse have come to fly with her to the Milky Way. Then, sleepy and safe in his arms, the child is carried home. McPhail's paintings, in deep rich tones against velvety black backgrounds, successfully reflect the scenes and softly contrast starlit figures with deep shadows. A gentle story that celebrates night's beauty and a family's enveloping warmth.
Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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