Fiona Loves the Night
Kindergarten-Grade 3—A little girl wakes up in the middle of the night. Her dog watches her go outside where "the night wraps around her like a velvet coat." The benevolent moon watches over her and smiles. She sees the stars, flowers that bloom only at night, and droplets of water hanging like jewels on a spider's web. She hears crickets, a barred owl, and a mockingbird. She runs through the garden where fireflies flash in the dark, and she feels as if she is running through stars. Then her dog comes to take her home. Through the lyrical text, children see the wonders that Fiona experiences. Shepherd places large images only partially shown against finger-painted backgrounds in shades of dark blue. Circles of color make the moon and stars soft and mysterious, and fireflies in the garden are as luminous as stars. The last spread shows Fiona and the moon looking remarkably alike. Librarians might pair Kevin Henkes'sKitten's First Full Moon(Greenwillow, 2004) with this story for a quiet but shining storytime.—Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TNCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.