The Night Riders

by Matt Furie (Illustrator)

Overview

In Matt Furie’s glorious debut, a nocturnal frog and rat awake at midnight, share a salad of lettuce and bugs, and strike out on an epic dirtbike adventure toward the sunrise. As the friends make their way from forest to bat cave to ghost town to ocean to shore and beyond, new friends are discovered, a huge crab is narrowly avoided, and a world is revealed. Packed with colorful characters and surprising details on every hand-drawn page, The Night Riders is the ideal book for anyone who has ever wanted to surf to the mountains on the back of a dolphin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781936365562
Publisher:	McSweeney's Publishing
Publication date:	08/07/2012
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	848,050
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Matt Furie was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1979. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio in 2001. Matt is a Leo, he enjoys long walks in the park, bubble baths, and an occasional glass of wine. His comic series “Boy’s Club” is published by Buenaventura Press.

Editorial Reviews

Newcomer Furie’s wordless story of a frog who takes off with his pet mouse on a moonlit bicycle ride is filled with unexpected turns. Story elements come and go without being developed. Nightmarish creatures turn out to be friends. The characters are resolutely un-cute. The frog snags a moth with his tongue (it’s in the spirit of snacking, but it’s still a little graphic). There are other tongues in the story, too. Early in the journey the frog and the mouse meet a dragonlike creature that looks like a venomous snake with bird legs. As the snake-bird comes in close, apparently ready to strike, the mouse boldly licks its snout, and the monster licks him back in the friendliest possible way. It’s one of several oddly heartwarming moments. The snake-bird joins forces with the frog and the mouse, and the three travel underground, through a deserted town, and into the ocean, where they surf on dolphins. On every page, Furie imagines ever more pleasantly surreal plants, trees, and animals. Fans of the wandering, exploratory nature of many current video games will be mesmerized. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 2—This rather strange, otherworldly wordless picture book features a cartoonish-looking frog and mouse who go exploring on their bike in the middle of the night. The ride takes them through odd-looking forests, down under the ground, and into the ocean. Before heading out, however, they each have a salad-a bowl of bugs for Frog and lettuce and tomato for Mouse. As the ride continues, Frog and Mouse encounter odd-colored animals with oversize eyes, a scaly orange dragon, gremlins, and blue snakes and kiwis. With long fangs and an angry stare, the dragon looks scary but turns out to be quite friendly. He leads the pair underground where they meet up with a pink and orange video-gaming batlike creature. The four new friends explore a deserted town before heading out to the ocean. More fantastic and dangerous creatures await them, along with some friendly mauve-colored porpoises. Tired but happy, the four creatures greet the dawn from a cliff overlooking the ocean. The illustrations are rendered in crayon, watercolor, and ink in a style that is reminiscent of '80s monster cartoons or movies. Some children will enjoy the detail on each page, and the spread depicting the underwater world is colorful and attractive. However, other children will find the creatures' strange faces and features too frightening. The dust cover opens out into a poster. A supplemental purchase.—Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA

School Library Journal

In this wordless odyssey, a postprandial nighttime outing turns particularly adventurous for two animal buddies. With his mouse friend in the front basket, a frog's bike ride down a moonlit country road leads to startling encounters with a fierce-looking but friendly cockatrice, a computer gamer that looks like a bat crossed with a human and, just off a nearby beach, a menacing giant white crab. These creatures are only representative, though, of the many exotic and fantasy animals that Furie strews about each grainy-surfaced scene as he leads his two explorers past open woods, into twisting tunnels underground and through a deserted town decorated with gargoyles on the way to the sea. Surfing back to shore atop a pair of dolphins, the frog and mouse conclude their journey by climbing to a headland to watch a bright sunrise. A foldout poster of the cast (and cockatrice) serves as dust jacket. Presented in a mix of sequential panels and full-spread views, this easy-to-follow debut tale is rich in both drama and sights that are less dangerous-looking than delightfully strange. (Picture book. 5-7)

Kirkus Reviews

"On every page, Furie imagines ever more pleasantly surreal plants, trees, and animals. Fans of the wandering, exploratory nature of many current video games will be mesmerized." — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher