Night Job (2018)

 Night Job by Karen Hesse shows us that we depend on people who work all night. A young boy hops on his dad's motorcycle on Friday nights and together they zoom along a highway to a school building. "Dad hauls out a ring of keys as big as the rising moon." Then, dad cleans the gym floor, the cafeteria, the stage, and classrooms. After sitting in the courtyard for a "lunch" of egg salad sandwiches, Dad cleans the library and the boy falls asleep on a sofa. As the sun rises, they roar home to what hints to be an apartment. G. Brian Karas' illustrations get the job done. They show a boy's joy spending time with his dad at work. The pictures feel like a lonesome night illuminated by bulbs. 

I searched a library network for other picture books by Karen Hesse after reading Come On, Rain!. What turned up was this one and Just Juice (1998), which isn't a picture book. While I like both these stories, they didn't have the magic of Come On, Rain! , at least for me. Maybe it was the collaboration with Jon J. Muth that birthed an especially lovely picture book. Of course, Hesse wrote many fine stories. My comments are actually in praise of Come On, Rain!, I guess. 

Not the Piano, Mrs. Medley! (1991)

 Not the Piano, Mrs. Medley! by Evan Lavine is a cute story about Mrs. Medley’s first visit to a beach. “She had just moved into a new house and hadn’t seen the sea yet.” She invites her grandson and dog to accompany her. Anyone who’s been to the beach knows there’s much to pack, beginning with towels. But what if it rains? Mrs. Medley stops in her flip flops and looks up at the sky. Then she turns around and walks home to get some rain things. On her way back to the beach she realizes they have no toys. Max says they don’t need toys, but the trio walk back home anyway. This pattern repeats until grandma, grandson, and dog arrive at the beach with a hilarious pile of belongings. The ending is adorable. This is a super fun story made even more enjoyable by S.D.Schindler’s illustrations. Each picture has lots of setting. I spent time with the pictures soaking in location details. 

I picked up this book because I expected a music theme. No music theme, but a delightful surprise instead.

 (Don’t you just love a title that needs punctuation!)

Wake Up, Bear . . . It's Christmas! (1981)

 Wake Up, Bear . . . It's Christmas! by Stephen Gammell is lots of fun! The illutrations are beautiful, as usual. Bear is a full-bodied, cuddly looking character always wearing a smile. And while the narration is in prose, Bear speaks in rhyme. 

Bear plans to wake up from his winter nap to enjoy Christmas. He snuggles into bed and falls asleep until his clock wakes him on Christmas Eve. Snow covers the woods ourside his tree trunk home. Wearing red scarf and red mittens, he walks out into the weather and finds a small pine tree. The tree is decorated and stocking hung as he plays a guitar and settles in to enjoy the evening. 

A surprise visitor taps on Bear's door. It's a man in a red suit, green striped mittens, and white beard. "'Hello, Bear. I saw your light. I'll warm myself, if that's alright?'" It's after an evening of conversation and song that the little man asks Bear to join him for a ride. You can guess the rest."'Oh, what a Christmas!' hollered Bear. 'I've never had such fun. I'd like to think that it could be like this for everyone.'"

Andrews' Own Place (1993)

 Andrew's Own Place by Nancy Riecken is about a very young boy who cherishes routine. He has a special chair in which he sits to eat his morning oatmeal from his Vitamin Pals bowl. His toothbrush is the sparkley purple one. His carseat with the soft blue blanket is his place in the family van. So when his routine is disrupted by a family outing, Andrew gets anxious. 

The family drives to a wooded area to picnic and hike. Andrew asks to watch the woods rather than enter them. Andrew's breakfast is a sandwich, not his usual oatmeal.  His family is gently reassuring, so Andrew goes along with with everything. When his father and two siblings enter a cave, I too get anxious. Since when is it ok for kids to explore a cave? Andrew cries that he can't go in there and I'm with him. He and his mother wait outside the cave until Andrew worries they need help. He stands at the opeing and calls for his father and sisters. They reappear and Andrew is relieved, so relieved that "the deep woods seemed pretty". 

Meg Kelleher Aubrey's watercolor illustrations drew my attention to the book. She captures Andrew's expressions preceisely. 

The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World's Coral Reefs (2018)

 The  Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World's Coral Reefs by Kate Messner is a book about Ken Nedimyer.  He loved the ocean as a child. I mean, really loved the ocean. He watched Jacques Cousteau on television, swam amongst coral reefs as a child, and had 30 aquariums in his bedroom. As an adult, he tackled the problem of dying coral reefs by creating coral colonies. "Six small coral colonies...glued onto a limestone surface where a reef had once flourished...Would they grow?" It was an enormous effort carried out by volunteers in the Florida Keys. It was so successful, that Nedimyer worked with other coutries to help their coral reefs flourish. 

I thought this would make a fabulous Picture Book Talk lesson. I guess others did also, because I see seven resources based on this book. That was enough for me to put the book aside. But, honestly, I was unhappy with Matthew Forsythe's illustrations. The limited palette didn't reflect a brilliant deep for me. And they didn't add content to the text. I chose not to spend hours rereading this story and savoring the pictures. 

Fred Stays with Me! (2007)

 Fred Stays with Me! by Nancy Coffelt  is about a child who sometimes lives with her mom and sometimes lives with her dad. It's a very quick read, often only one brief line of text on a page. So there's not really much to say about it. This child's disrupted life has a constant--her dog Fred goes with her to her mom's house and to her dad's house. Fred barks and chews socks, behaviors that upset both parents. But when our main character makes it clear that Fred stays with her, the parents come up with solutions to his annoying quirks. 

Illustrations by Tricia Tusa are fun, though minimalist. She adds very little content to the story. I wonder why she uses such a limited palette in this book. 

Neeny Coming, Neeny Going (1996)

 Neeny Coming, Neeny Going  by Karen English won the Coretta Scott King Award. An introduction "To the Reader" says that the setting for this story is Daufuskie Island off the coast of South Carolina. It's was home to a culture "that blended American and West African customs. The language, too, was a blend of African and English". This is a story about change for this island. 

Neeny is a cousin who moved off island to live with her mother. Her mother "works for a high-class family in Charleston" and Neeny has shed her island ways and adopted a more sophisticated outlook on life. Several pages begin the story with the main character super excited that her cousin Neeny is visiting. But the exceitement fades as Neeny shows no interest in participating in island activities. The text is a dialect of English I'm not familiar with. It adds to the overal atmosphere of being on island. At the end of the story, "Neeny come like a visitor who didn't want to visit..." 

Paintings by Synthia Saint James add color to the story. I'm wondering if her style, with its lack of detail,  complements the fading island culture.