BookFLIX! New! Database for Kids Grades K-3 Build a Love of Reading and Learning with Paired Fiction and Nonfiction - Online!

Creatures of the Night
by Stephen Brooks
(Check Catalog)

A delightful tale of the world of nocturnal creatures. Children are fascinated, and sometimes intimidated, by the world that exists in darkness. This beautifully illustrated rhyming tale allows them to associate playful, fun characters with the sounds and noises they hear. This story is sure to help your child drift off to a peaceful sleep with charming images of singing toads, dancing fireflies, and other creatures that come out to play when the sun goes down.

Tina Dybvik - Children's Literature

Simple stanzas relate the habits of creatures that come out at night. The straightforward descriptions of raccoons, owls, field mice, and crickets have a slightly irregular meter that sometimes forces the rhyme. The story begins at sundown and continues until dawn with an emphasis on transitions from light to dark to light. According to the book jacket, the story grew out of a child's "incessant questions regarding nightly noises," and this text puts a face on those strange sounds. Wilson's animal illustrations are playful and appealing, with soft rubbed colors that pop against black skies. They lead the reader through swamps and tall grass filled with oddly smiling frogs and lightening bugs. The book concludes with sunrise and the promised return of daytime animals. It is a brief description of nocturnal wildlife with less than ten species formally introduced, and the combination of verse and natural science will appeal to the very young. 2005, Purple Sky, Ages 4 to 8.