Susan Marie Swanson

What a lovely book! I picked it up at the library because the cover and the title appealed to me. Looking through it, I was struck by the sparsity of words (less than ten per page) and decided that it seemed like a nice bedtime story to read over and over, and at the same time my son could probably handle reading it by himself.

Once we got home and sat down with the book, I was enthralled. The scratchboard pictures are in black and white and a striking golden yellow for emphasis. Both the show more text and the pictures are beautiful, poetic and imaginative. The text is so simple, a little bit in the vein of [b:Goodnight Moon|32929|Goodnight Moon|Margaret Wise Brown|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348416480s/32929.jpg|1086867]. The beginning goes something like this: "Here is the key to the house / In the house burns a light / In that light rests a bed." The pictures are full of details which reward repeated readings, such as when my son noticed that a picture hanging on a wall in the House in the Night in the little girl's bedroom was the same as one we have in our house! I'm totally in love with this gorgeous picture book. We read it many times. And when we finally had to return it, I had a really hard time letting go ... show less

The winner of the 2009 Caldecott Medal for illustrations, The House In the Night has a simple, nursery-rhyme style, with a cumulative narrative by Susan Marie Swanson, and breathtakingly gorgeous two-tone scratchboard and watercolor artwork by Beth Krommes. "Here is the key to the house. In the house burns a light." And so begins this gentle homage to night-time rituals, and the warmth and light of home...

Krommes' illustrations match Swanson's text perfectly - her contrasting gold and black show more tones evoking the sense of light and dark, of inside and outside, to be found in the narrative. I hadn't encountered much "scratchboard" art before, but the intricate detail, and delicate lines reminded me of some of the etching and engraving work I have seen in older children's books. This is a lovely, lovely book - worthy of the honors it has received! show less

Stunning illustrations and a very cute picture book. The book reads forwards and backwards about a girl who goes to her house, reads a book and imagines flying a bird in the night.

Swanson relies on classic nursery rhyme structure to drive the narratiev of this book, which makes it at once recognizable, but what takes this book to the next level are the illustrations by Beth Krommes. Her style immitates wood block printing (an early illustrative technique) and the highly textural nature of the images gives the story a weight and complexity that would not otherwise be present. Each image is in fact so dense with detail that they border on too much, but Krommes has show more pulled back just enough to toe the line. show less