Fireflies at Midnight

by Marilyn Singer, Ken Robbins (Illustrator)

Overview

A robin cheerfully greets the day at dawn.
A horse nibbles grass under the heat of the midday sun.
A rabbit stands still, disappearing into the grass at dusk.
As evening falls, a frog tells the world that he's the king of the pond.
During one summer day, these and other creatures tell their tales, celebrating their ordinary — but extraordinary — lives in verse. Young readers will be entranced by the many voices created by renowned poet Marilyn Singer. They will be encouraged to look more closely at the surprising world around them — morning, noon, and night.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689824920
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	04/01/2003
Edition description:	1ST
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	5 - 9 Years

About the Author

Author of more than one hundred books in many genres, Marilyn Singer is the winner of the 2015 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Her works include Mirror, Mirror, which was an ALA Notable Book, won the Cybils Award for poetry, and was on eight major best-books-of-the-year lists; Venom, an NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children; Fireflies at Midnight, a School Library Journal Best Book; and Tallulah’s Tutu and its sequels. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Washington, Connecticut, with her husband and several pets. Visit MarilynSinger.net.

Ken Robbins specializes in photographic nonfiction books on subjects ranging from the Brooklyn Bridge to autumn leaves. His book Tools, with its trademark hand-tinted photographs was a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. His books for Atheneum include Fireflies at Midnight by Marilyn Singer, Trucks, Thunder on the Plains, and Apples. Mr. Robbins lives in East Hampton, Long Island.

Editorial Reviews

In Fireflies at Midnight by Marilyn Singer, a summer day unfolds through the voices of various animals, from a robin at dawn ("Up cheerup I'm up/ Let me be first to greet the light"), to a bat ("I hear/ I see/ the night"), to a mole the following dawn ("In the beneath/ it is mole time/ the whole time"). Ken Robbins's photorealistic art brings each animal into an up-close, often soft focus. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 4-Brief poetic musings set throughout the course of a day capture the true nature of a variety of everyday creatures. The vividly realized photo treatments are at once hyperrealistic and dreamlike, reinforcing the feeling of moments frozen in time. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Devoted fans of Turtle in July (1989) will savor each minute spent with this companion collection of chronologically organized poems from the prolific and versatile poet. This time, Singer spreads her evocative poems throughout a single day, from a robin "first to greet the light" and a cavorting otter out for a morning swim to ants in the afternoon, a camouflaged rabbit at dusk, the eponymous fireflies flashing at midnight, and on through the night to a mole digging in for sleep as a new dawn approaches. Singer once again captures the intrinsic character of each animal's nature or movement through innovative poetic devices: swooping rhymes describing the playful otter, a rollicking rhythm for a poem about a horse, and a strong two-beat meter for a monarch butterfly that reflects the beating pattern of its wings. She divides the 14 poems evenly between rhyming and non-rhyming works, and all of them employ unusual rhyme schemes or structures. The innovative poetry is well complemented with unusual photographic illustrations that sometimes look like photographic collages and other times like watercolors or oil paintings. The volume's thoughtful design includes firefly-spangled endpapers and a subtle reminder at the top of each poem delineating the time of day. The midnight blue cover with glowing fireflies hints at the magical nature of what lies inside: luminous poems that will stand the test of time. (Poetry. 5-10)

Kirkus Reviews