Post by Mark T. Locker.

The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein.

My son has very little interest in picture books anymore. It’s all chapter books and graphic novels and comics. And since I no longer work in a children’s library, my exposure to new picture books has been very limited. I picked up this book off the new books shelf. I like the night and I liked the cover art so I picked this up on a whim. It’s a lovely book to read at night to a child, either to appreciate the purpley blacks of night or to take some of the fear out of darkness. Or to read at five in the morning as the day comes to life.

The premise of this book I could immediately relate to. A needy cat decides it’s a good idea to awaken his master for inexplicable reasons. This is every single day of my life. As the child wanders around the darkened house, everything looks mysterious and different. All the color is gone, replaced with inky shadows. Slowly, the sun creeps over the horizon as the boy and the cat watch colors slowly bleed back into the world.

A simple book from the Caldecott Award-winning artist/author of The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, kids and adults will enjoy the painted pages and the quick-reading story of the world coming to life every morning.