Children's Book Review: Lights Out, Nights Out by William Boniface

Summary:

From Accord's New York Times best-selling AniMotion series, Lights Out, Night's Out takes readers on a nighttime safari to see the world through the eyes of clever nocturnal critters ranging from hedgehogs and hippos to frogs and fireflies. High definition fluorescent inks, exclusive to this collection, appear in both page illustrations and animation windows to heighten visual contrasts between late-night imagery and the colorful creatures that play across the book's twilight canvas. Such vividly depicted illustrations paired with Accord's full-color AniMotion windows, literally bring the story to life, while author William Boniface hints at slumber through his lyrical verse. Like other AniMotion titles, Lights Out, Night's Out encourages environmental awareness at the earliest of ages by including a back-of-book resource section full of interesting facts about the nocturnal animals.
 

Release Date:  August 2012

Age Group: Children

Source: Purchased through a book order

Reviewed By: Nat

Review:
Lights Out, Nights Out turned out to be a book that all my kids enjoyed and that hardly ever happens. Lights Out, Nights Out (LONO) is a cardstock picture book that has ani-motion images throughout. I did not like this book for the storyline; I enjoyed it for several other reasons.

My boys (ages 3 and 6)

They really liked the bright, bold pictures but they especially loved the ani-motion images. My younger son loved the movement on each page and I liked that the book was durable. He is a rough little monster and a book has to be able to fight back with him. LONO is tough and can handle his “light” reading hands.

My older son is really interested in nature and animals and the simple introduction of nocturnal animals was perfect. The storyline was simple and so were the animal facts but I think it worked because I was more interested in expanding his vocabulary and introducing a new way to classify animals. We were not reading it for an in-depth study of nocturnal animals but were looking for a simple introduction of the word nocturnal.

My daughter (8 years old)

Who would have thought a picture book would help my 3^rd grader with her homework? The poetry format and simple stanzas of this book was a very easy and simple introduction to poetry. LONO  is written in Quatrain style and each stanza is four lines and is written with the abcb format.

"The cricket is (a)

A crafty critter. (b)

When the sun sets (c)

Watch him skitter." (b)

She would listen to me read it out loud to her brothers and then she would pick out the words that rhymed in each stanza. When we finished the book, we went back through it and I taught her the abcb style and the reason that those specific words had to rhyme.

I would highly recommend this book for young readers. It’s simple, entertaining and just an all-around good book. But more importantly, it has a lot to offer young readers of various ages.

*images and summary source: goodreads.com