A family resembling a Charles Addams creation learns how to live during the night in this visual feast.
Karina Wolf, in her first picture book, charts a family that shifts from being a normal one that drives, goes to school and takes photographs during the sunlight hours, to one that "stayed awake only in nighttime." The problem is that they've moved 12 time zones away for Mrs. Insomniac's new job. Mother nods off at her desk, Father falls asleep taking pictures, and the headmistress sends Mika home from school with a diagnosis of "sleeping sickness." The Brothers Hilts depict dark, shadowy rooms with people and mice in profile, and green, gold and red bottles gleaming in the few rays of sun. Mika's purported sickness is a wakeup call to the whole family. They try many strategies to get to sleep, but nothing works until they quiz their nocturnal neighbors. The book's design juxtaposes velvety interiors of the Insomniacs' house--striped wallpaper, high-back chairs--with vignettes of them plotting to learn the bear's secret to how he beds down all winter long.
A gorgeous image of the family members in search of the bears on a rolling landscape lit only by their lamps and a hint of sun on the horizon complements a curving colony of bats (which the Insomniacs think are mice that hang upside down). But the piéce de resistance is the 11-panel progression of the Insomniacs noticing "the darkness was full of life." A porthole view of owls, as if seen within a hollow tree, fireflies in a dense thicket of grass, a herd of moose approaching a pond all attest to a thriving nighttime scene.
In the end, the message is clear: If you accept your circumstances, you're more likely to figure out the best next steps. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: A favorite warhorse about not wanting to go to sleep gets a fresh new look thanks to glorious artwork by the Brothers Hilts.