The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (May 5, 2008)
Amazon Price: $11.56
ISBN-10: 0618862447
ISBN-13: 978-0618862443
Source of book: Review copy from publisher
If you're looking for a soothing and memorable bedtime story that will lull your little one to sleep, look no further. Inspired by the cumulative poem, "This is the key of the kingdom," The House in the Night is a cumulative poem that begins with a father handing his small child a key to the house. When the child opens the door, we see a bed, and "on that bed waits a book. In that book flies a bird." The child imagines hopping on this bird's back and flying through the dark, seeing the moon, the sun on the moon's face, and back into the house where the child is tucked into bed by her mother and falls sound asleep.
The text itself is simple enough for a beginning reader to understand, and young children learning new words will enjoy the repetition of the common objects presented in the book:
"Through the dark glows the moon.
On the moon's face shines the sun.
Sun in the moon,
moon in the dark,
dark in the song,
song in the bird,
bird in the book,
book on the bed..."
Beth Krommes' detailed black and white scratchboard illustrations with splashes of a vibrant watercolor yellow throughout are AMAZING and add to the book's warm tone. I predict that children will love having this book read to them, and it's destined to become a classic that many families will enjoy for generations.
Other Bedtime Book Recommendations:
Who Will Sing a Lullaby?
In a Blue Room
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
What Other Bloggers Are Saying:
Book of the Day: The book as a whole is a quieter, gentler story than many others found in the children’s room. It would be perfect for a bedtime story, or for a quiet spell in the middle of a busy day. (Read more...)
Fuse #8: "Fifty years from now libraries and websites will be filled with queries from people asking, 'There's this book I've been trying to find from years. It took place at night and there was yellow . . . it was really gorgeous. Does anyone remember it?'" (Read more...)
A Patchwork of Books: "A very enjoyable bedtime story, you'll probably have to read again and again. " (Read more...)
If you have a review of this book, leave a comment with your link, and I'll post it here!
Hold on. A mother didn't want her daughter to know that people like in trailer parks? Are you kidding me?
I'm really sensitive, too. I don't want to know that there are people who don't want their children to know other people live in trailer parks.
Honestly, what was your response? Did you laugh out loud, or hold it in?
I mean "live," not "like." See how upset I was?
Had she *read* Because of Winn-Dixie? Because as I recall, there wasn't anything very bad about the trailer park in that story. It could have been portrayed as a really white trash place, you know?
I student taught in a very affluent neighborhood, and when I put a picture of the trailer my family lives in on a poster I made to tell the kids more about myself, and my goodness, they just thought it was a small house, they weren't scarred for life at all! Personally, I don't see the difference between living in a trailer park and living in an apartment.
Heather, my cousin lives in a trailer park in a trailer that is nicer than some people's homes & neighborhoods; that's part of what bewildered me about the trailer park bit -- yes, there are the jokes, but the reality is different.
So it really is more of a class issue than anything else; she didn't want her kids to know that people lived anywhere other than houses. End of story. And I also think this plays into her own ignorance; that she didn't think of trailers beyond, well, the stereotypes of same (so now she is attempting to create the same cycle of willful ignorance with her kids.)
Did she read the whole book? I think not -- otherwise, I can't imagine how she could be bothered by trailer park but not bothered by alcoholic abandoning mother.
Oh, and I agree that in the book, there is nothing negative about where Opal lives; I think there are the grouchy neighbors/landlord, but really, that could happen in any neighborhood association.
Robin - I just couldn't react, it was so "the hell?" So I was all, oh, let me show you the Betsy Tacy books.
Thanks for the link. I was just thinking about this the other night when watching the PBS American Masters show "The American Novel." The show looks at how these great novels focus and reflect on the American dream. I tried to think of what might be comparable in YA to Grapes of Wrath, but I could only come up with older ones like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
This is an interesting blog and you're right that a lot of the books that I am familiar with in terms of poverty being an element of the plot are historical fiction or not set in current time. In addition to Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, I am most familiar with Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry and the other novels in the series which is set in Mississippi during the Great Depression. Also Sharon Bell Mathis' Teacup Full of Roses is a story about a Black family in inner city New York around the late 60s, early 70s.