Review by New York Times Review
I WAS never an easy sleeper. On restless childhood nights, I played a game: first I imagined a bird'seye view of the bed where I lay awake, then let the lens pull back to reveal the rooftop of my family's house, then our town from above, then the silhouette of New Jersey, then America, and finally the whole world. Nowadays that zoomingout trick is a familiar spectacle for fans of Google Earth. But before the broadband era, it was how I soothed myself by staking out a place albeit a tiny one in the wide darkness of the night. Coming to terms with bedtime is a rite of passage, deftly explored in Jonathan Bean's "At Night," the first book Bean has both written and illustrated. A restless little girl seeks a nighttime niche of her own as the rest of her family slumbers: "She lay thinking alone and couldn't close her eyes and couldn't sleep." A gentle breeze blows from her bedroom window, bringing an idea She lugs her blankets and pillows upstairs to the roof deck, where she nests them into a pair of chairs. Then "she lay in her bed on her house in the city, in the night, under the sky." She smiles, drifting to sleep in the cool night air. Bean's debut as an author is sweet and resonant, as calming as a mug of warm milk. He captures the solitary sense of being the last one awake in a sleeping house and the peacefulness that comes with discovering a restful space of one's own (even if that space isn't found in the classic places: the wellappointed bedroom, as in "Goodnight Moon," or at the tail end of a strange dream, as in Sendak's "In the Night Kitchen"). The watercolor and ink illustrations show most of the indoor scenes in delicate square panels, boxed in by thick white margins. When the girl reaches the roof, they become sweeping doublepage spreads, a visual analogue for the wideness of the sky and the surrounding city. On the last page, Bean returns to his boxed format to deliver a final dollop of comfort: the little girl's mother, who has been watching the adventure but not interfering, pulls up a chair to sip tea beside her sleeping daughter. Not everyone wants to call it a night at the end of the day. For another picture book heroine, nighttime is an alternate world with sights and sounds to explore, as exotic and immersive as a deepsea dive. Patricia MacLachlan, best known for her Newbery Medalwinning "Sarah, Plain and Tall," and her daughter, Emily MacLachlan Charest, tell a tale of an evening stroll in "Fiona Loves the Night" When the moon appears in her window, Fiona gets ready, first turning off her night light, then the lamp in the hallway. Without them, "she can see the night." In the backyard, "the night wraps around her like a velvet coat." Fiona recognizes the familiar night sounds of crickets, a barred owl, a mockingbird. But it's the night sights that steal the show. Dappled with fingertipsize blots of color, Amanda Shepherd's painted illustrations sprawl across doublepage spreads. Jeweltoned highlights and lustrous shades of blue keep the dark scenes lively. It's easy to see why Fiona loves this landscape: moonflowers bloom with a spectral glow, and fireflies shine brightly, with coronas like tiny Japanese lanterns. Many of the scenes, depicted as extreme closeups, are barely contained by the edges of the book. The effect is intimate and exciting in places, though sometimes subjects are overwhelmed by their colossal size: a luna moth's delicate wings feel dense and muddy, and Fiona's dog looks a bit bovine. Though she's alone in the dark, Fiona is curious and unafraid. The story's serene, lulling rhythm creates a sense of safety, a balm for young readers. That tone wavers only briefly, when Fiona spots a pair of spooky eyes watching her. With relief, she recognizes her dog, Max, who in a parentlike role has come to guide her home. As dawn breaks, the night animals she encountered are going to sleep, and Fiona is snug in bed, dreaming. Her imagination leaks into the lovely final pages, where the bedroom becomes an outdoor night scene, including a sleeping moon with a beatific smile that mirrors her own. A little girl has trouble falling asleep in "At Night," by Jonathan Bean. > Nocturnal creatures abound in "Night Shift," but they're mostly the twolegged kind. Jessie Hartland's quirky gouache panels are an ode to city workers who punch the clock when "you are finishing up the last bit of chocolate pudding and then brushing your teeth and wishing you didn't have to go to bed just yet." Hartland's inverted world delivers an uppastbedtime thrill. Its detailed scenes are populated by a latenight D.J., bridge painters, window dressers, a zookeeper and other nighttime toilers. They're a cheerful lot; no one looks harried or strung out on caffeine. And they're all linked in a little ecosystem, where the D.J. eats a doughnut from the night baker, who makes snacks for the road worker, and so on. Each page is dense with humorous detail: cats and poodles pop up everywhere, freight crates carry coconuts and ocelots, and doughnuts come in flavors like "plain Jane," root beer and broccolinut Eagleeyed readers will enjoy finding a clock on each page. Though the text feels a bit clumsy in places, the sophisticated, funny illustrations tell enough stories of their own to lure readers back again and again. The night shift ends where else? at the AllNight Café, where a yellowlighted room beats back the darker tones from earlier pages. Together the workers sit around one long counter and unwind over coffee. It's a warm vision of camaraderie: a small night world, after all. Jessica Bruder is a reporter for The Oregonian and the author of "Burning Book," about the annual Burning Man festival.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
Hartland introduces children to 14 jobs that are done in the wee hours of the night from street sweeping and printing the newspaper to making doughnuts. Each double-page spread, which details one profession, leads in to the next, starting at 10 p.m. and ending with all the workers meeting at a café in the early morning when their work is done. Hartland's jazzy, energetic illustrations make clever use of textured brushstrokes, scrawled cartoons, hand-lettered signs, and recurring images that tie everything together. Stylistically, the text, placed on the edges of each page, anchors the freewheeling artwork, but its clipped lines and fragmented sentences make for occasionally awkward reading. Still, children will pore over the illustrations and be amazed to learn how much goes on while they sleep.--Hutley, Krista Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
As readers are toddling off to bed, or as "you are finishing up the last bit of chocolate pudding and then brushing your teeth and wishing you didn't have to go to bed just yet," others are just getting started. Hartland (Clementine in the City), playing an irrepressible naif-cosmopolitan, checks in with 14 different kinds of nighthawks, from the museum security guard to the window dressers at a chic department store. What's more, the after-dark citizenry is one big happy family: the donut maker sells a big box of donuts to the fisherman, who runs aground but gets rescued by the tugboat captain, and everybody is a customer of the benevolent waitress who presides at the all-night cafe (the zookeeper even brings along an ocelot on a leash). Working in a style that recalls Maira Kalman's, Hartland packs her engagingly giddy pages with wry tributes to the eclectic rhythms and people in the urban after-hours scene. She also clearly believes that cats and dogs have as much claim on this landscape as their human counterparts, and readers will get a bang out of spotting all the ways they make a home in the big city. Ages 4-7. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Among the many workers profiled here are a street sweeper, a museum security guard, newspaper printers, a disc jockey, bridge painters, and zookeepers who keep the lights bright in the "World of Night" so that the nocturnal animals can sleep. Quirky gouache paintings capture the mood of this alternative world with its vibrant life. The story begins by addressing an imaginary someone who wishes he didn't have to go to bed just yet. Did you know that "there are people out there awake doing all sorts of interesting things-?" The text mentions surveillance systems in the museum and a GPS that is used by the fishermen (an explanatory note is added). A question at the bottom of each right page foreshadows the next worker: "Who does the street sweeper stop to watch so late at night? WINDOW DRESSERS," busy with their mannequins and "feathers, felt, and fluff." Text and illustrations are equally unique. A bright yellow page closes the story with the cast of characters gathered for coffee at an all-night cafi.-Teresa Pfeifer, Alfred Zanetti Montessori Magnet School, Springfield, MA (c) Copyright 2010. 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
(Primary) Children know they go to bed before the grownups, so the topic of people who actually stay up all night is perennially interesting to them. Hartland begins with the street sweeper at ten o'clock and then asks, "Who does the street sweeper stop to watch so late at night?" The answer at the turn of the page is the window dressers, at eleven. Each worker connects with another as the night goes on, and details in the pictures link together as well. A cage in the zoo labeled "Ocelots. Coming soon!" will be filled by the promised ocelots aboard the freighter on the next page, and careful observers will notice touches like a donut sign heralding the next job of donut baker. Both the occupations and the Bemelmans-flavored art favor the retro -- there are no jobs involving modern technology -- but it all comes together at the end for a conclusion in which the workers meet at the all-night cafe.From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. 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
Hartland offers an eye-opener for young urbanites who think that the world goes to sleep when they do. Capping each spread with a page-turning question ("What is that swishing noise outside?"), she introduces a diverse cast of night workers, from a street sweeper and road workers to store window dressers, bridge painters and an all-night DJ. Her postmodern city scenes, done in a style reminiscent of Maira Kalman's, add both visual links and other night owls, including a turbaned taxi driver, a car full of raccoons checking out a garbage can, a dogwalker and a goodly number of cats. At shift's end, all (except for the raccoons) gather convivially around the counter of (what else?) the 24-hour caf for breakfast. The admixture of less familiar occupations sets this cheery nocturnal excursion apart from others of the ilk, such as Monica Wellington's Night City (1998) and Patricia Grossman's Night Ones (1991). (Picture book. 5-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
