Copyright 2007-2010 Joyce Sidman. All rights reserved. Please ask permission before using any images on this website.
illustrated by Rick Allen Houghton Mifflin, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0-547-15228-8
“In Sidman's delicious poems, darkness is the norm, and there's nothing to fear but the rising sun.
--Publisher's Weekly, starred reviewCome feel the cool and shadowed breeze,
come smell your way among the trees,
come touch rough bark and leathered leaves:
Welcome to the night.
Welcome to the night, where mice stir and furry moths flutter. Where snails spiral into shells as orb spiders circle in silk. Where the roots of oak trees recover and repair from their time in the light. Where the porcupette eats delicacies—raspberry leaves!—and coos and sings.
Come out to the cool, night wood, and buzz and hoot and howl—but beware of the great horned owl—for it’s wild and it’s windy way out in the woods!
Listen to Joyce read from this book
Watch a book trailer
Here is another one, developed by PhD student
Mary Virginia Meeks
Mary Virginia Meeks
Awards
Newbery Honor Book
Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book
Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Honor Book
Cybils Poetry Award Finalist
NCTE Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts
Horn Book Fanfare
Bulletin Blue Ribbon
Booklist Editor's Choice
CBC Bank Street Best Book of the Year (starred)
Chicago Public Library Best book of the Year
NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book
Eureka! Nonfiction Children's Book Award
Eureka! Nonfiction Children's Book Award
Reviews
**Horn Book (starred review)
"From the opening poem, "To all of you who crawl and creep, / who buzz and chirp and hoot and peep, / who wake at dusk and throw off sleep: / Welcome to the night," Sidman celebrates the world that comes alive after dark. "
**Bulletin (starred review)
"This new volume teams a dozen Sidman poems about nocturnally active organisms from raccoons to snails to mushrooms with the work of artist Allen, who offers a sequence of gouache-tinted linocut prints follows the night from sunset's crepuscular tones into the dark of small hours and through until dawn, with the moon moving across the sky overhead."
"This picture book combines lyrical poetry and compelling art with science concepts. ”
"Spiders offer advice, porcupettes pirouette, and the moon laments the dawn, all illuminated by debut talent Allen's detailed yet moody prints, which encapsulate the mysteries and magic of the midnight hours."
How this book started . . .
I used to be just the teensiest bit afraid of the dark. I loved the concept
of the nighttime, its mystery and dark beauty, but the reality was a
different story. For us humans—diurnal, sight-oriented creatures that we
are—the darkness is alien and forbidding, especially in the woods
(which already have dark, mythic undertones). But there are all sorts of
creatures that prefer the dark, that thrive in the dark. Why? And how?
This book is my exploration of those questions. And you know what? Now
that I know so much about these fascinating night creatures, I'm not as
afraid of the dark anymore!
Buy this book . . .
Buy this book . . .
All art copyright 2010 Rick Allen. Please do not use without permission.
A 2011 Newbery Honor Book!
