Cricket Song

January 4, 2016
In a lullaby-like outing that celebrates interconnectedness, a boy slumbers at dusk, while the breeze “carries the song/ of crickets” into his bedroom. Outside his window, animals prepare for night in a hilly meadowland overlooking the bay. Hunter (Loon Baby) lyrically links each animal to another: “The fox sniffs for the/ scent of the rabbit,/ who hides in her hole in the field,/ listening to the hoo, hoo, hoo of a hunting owl/ carried on the ocean air.” Beneath the full-spread images, done in sweeping watercolor and textured with delicate ink lines, a thin border shows both the boy’s seaside home and a tropical fishing village, the softly luminescent landscapes separated by an ocean. As whales “rise up to breathe in/ air warmed by another land,” the village comes into full view, including another house overlooking tropical waters, where a girl sleeps “like you,/ to the song of crickets/ brought on the evening breeze.” A lovely, tranquil bedtime book that suggests the world need not seem so vast. Ages 4–7. Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown.

Starred review from January 1, 2016
Sleeping children on different sides of the ocean are linked by nature's sounds. The sun moves west, and an evening breeze "carries the song of crickets" to a sleeping child. Outside, cricket song merges with the "kreck" of frogs and the "poorwill!" of a bird listening for a fox's woodland footsteps. While the fox sniffs rabbit's field burrow, she listens to owl's "hoo" over the ocean, where "sea otters doze" in the bay and whales sing "deep in the sea." The same breeze draws fishermen to another shore. Here, parakeets "scrawk" in a palm tree growing in the yard of a girl sleeping while crickets sing outside the window. The sonorous text, laced with soothing onomatopoeic animal sounds, transports wee listeners from the bedroom of one sleeping child to that of another. Soporific illustrations in pen, ink, and watercolor realistically capture nature's creatures in the muted hues of dusk, while deft use of crosshatching suggests nightfall's atmospheric shadows. The double-page spreads progress from bedroom to yard to woods to fields to shore to ocean and finally to another shore and a different bedroom. A panoramic border at the foot of each spread holistically spans both coasts, transitioning from temperate to tropical worlds as each new page turn reveals minute visual changes reflecting the text. Sensitive bedtime winner guaranteed to enchant drowsy kids. (Picture book. 4-7)

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Starred review from January 1, 2016

PreS-Gr 1-In a yellow house, in a blue bedroom decorated with planets and stars, a boy sleeps. He cuddles a sea otter toy, and on the wall behind a windblown curtain is the painting of a South Pacific island, volcanic, the ocean parted by a whale's tail. The tranquil spread is underlined with a long, narrow panel depicting his house, the stretch of the sea, and then another house on an island just like the one in his painting. The sun hasn't set yet in this other place, where dolphins leap and yellow-green parakeets fly overhead. In subsequent spreads, sunset turns to night outside the boy's window. Inquisitive crickets are joined by puffing frogs, timid rabbits, a watchful fox, and a bay full of dozing otters. Meanwhile, the setting sun creeps along the lower panel as the main illustrations shift their focus to the deepening blue sky and sea of the islands, fishermen bringing in their boats, and a girl asleep under a fish-patterned blanket, a toy parakeet tucked in her arms. The language is as lulling as an evening breeze, but it's the illustrations that make this book truly extraordinary. Those who have experienced Hunter's earlier titles, including Possum's Harvest Moon (HMH, 1996), will be familiar with her gift for depicting the natural world. Here her watercolor and ink renderings of the landscape and the sea, the animals, and the purple-gold sunset clouds are an exquisite journey into the most restful part of the day. VERDICT An evocative work in which readers can look at the pictures and hear the wind, the whales, and the crickets singing.-Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2016
Preschool-G *Starred Review* At sunset, a boy falls asleep to the sound of crickets outside his window. As the crickets sing, frogs in the nearby stream make their kreck, kreck, kreck sound. Meanwhile, a fox sniffs for a rabbit, who listens for a nearby owl, who looks out over the bay, where otters doze to the songs of whales, who smell the suppers of fishermen, who beach their boats to the scrawk, scrawk of parakeets, who roost in a tree near a house where a girl sleeps while, nearby, crickets sing. The fluid, precisely worded text works seamlessly with the artwork, which is intelligently conceived, gracefully composed, and beautifully carried out. Combining watercolors with crosshatched ink drawings, each large picture features one or more characters and their surroundings. Beneath it on every spread, a narrow horizontal band offers a broad view of the entire story's setting. Tiny details change with each page turn. Children will study the close-up scenes and see how they fit into the long-distance ones. At some point, the long-range picture of a distant landscape becomes full of well-explored places, and the changing details become intriguing bits of visual narrative. With its absorbing illustrations and its satisfying, soporific story, this is an excellent bedtime book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2016
From one side of a bay to the other, the full-circle book's lyrical, evocative descriptions celebrate the sensations carried by the evening breeze "as the sun sails west." Each intriguing illustration offers a close-up of the animals (or children) mentioned and--in a narrow strip across the bottom--a panorama of the bay, changing as the sun sets further with every page turn.

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)