The House in the Night

The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, Pictures by Beth Krommes

Picture book for children ages 2-6

Five Stars

This bedtime story describes a house in the nighttime by going through different rooms and objects that describe a nightly routine in a nursery rhyme form.

This book is wonderful from the soothing words to the awesome illustrations that contrast dark from light. The House in the Night comes full circle from the first page to the last. It does so by using foreshadowing to connect each page to the next. For example, page one reads “Here is the key to the house.” then page two reads “In the house burns a light.” and page three reads “In that light rests a bed.” The reader can guess that the fourth page will have something to do with what is in, on, by, etc. the bed. Then to end the book, it goes back through the objects or rooms already discussed in the beginning of the book, bringing closure to the story, as well as the day. This story probably would not fall under the category of a well written book according to Tunnell and Jacobs because the simple sentence on each page tells the reader what is going on in the story instead of showing the reader. Precise vocabulary, figurative language, and dialogue are not used. But music definitely exists within this story as the words flow from one page to the next, even though the sentence lengths are not varied. What does make this story wonderful are the pictures that fill each page. Beth Krommes used a scratchboard technique to create each picture. This technique helps to establish the mood of the story, as you feel like it is nighttime while paging through the book. The style of these illustrations represented in this book would be expressionism as the bright color yellow of only a few objects on each page really makes them stand out, but they carry no more weight than the rest of the objects and people illustrated. On each page is only one sentence of text, but a whole background filled with a picture exists, and the picture tells way more about the story than the text itself does. It is no wonder that Krommes’ illustrations made this book a Caldecott medal winner! I do not know who wouldn’t want to fall asleep after reading this story, as that’s the kind of mood it puts the reader in.

The House in the Night is a bedtime story, so its connections to curriculum are limited. The wonderment of the illustrations would make it a worthwhile read aloud to the class, especially after a rowdy lunch period. This book could be used in this way to calm children down as they listen to the story and look intently at the pictures. Another idea for implementing this book into the curriculum would be to design a lesson around the Caldecott and Newberry Award Winners, since this book is a Caldecott medal winner. Students could read and look at the different illustrations and pick a book that they like best and do a read-aloud to the class. Other than that, this book is probably one that I would not use in my class.