Night Shift

There's something very magical about delving into what happens after the night lite goes on. While you're asleep, you might tell your little one, all SORTS of things happen outside (i.e., it's not all quiet and scary and lonely here, especially if you live in a big city like New York!) Jessie Hartland is an exceptional storyteller, designer and illustrator. She weaves together colorful vignettes of the men and women who keep the city humming at night, some expected (freighter and tugboat captains, radio DJ, street sweeper, donut baker, and road worker) and some not (bridge painter, window dresser, fisherman, and zookeeper)!. The writing is a combination of (mostly) prose brightened with bits of poetry, although the prose is so rhythmic and sensual that I'd "elevate" it to "prose poetry": "On a cool, dry night bridge painters assemble to climb the massive suspension bridge... At the tower's top is an enormous nest: a hawk with three eggs are painted around. Some paint drips down but the traffic is light. Not many cars out so late at night. Whose car gets splattered passing under a dripping bridge at 1:00 am? [turn to the next page here] The Zookeeper!" That's the structure of the book: Several "stanzas" describing someone on the night shift, with a clever (and surprising smooth) transition to the next worker. However, night shift is unusual in it's attention to detail, selection of interesting, sometimes exotic characters, and the original look of the gouache illustrations--detailed, yet atmospheric, expansive, and uncluttered. The narrative above is depicted by oversized painters, hooked for safety, climbing the bridge, the night and the ocean suggested by broad strokes of deep blues, punctuated by city lights, billboards, and a small hawk family atop one tower. The situations and workers should appeal to both genders, and Hartland brings some humor and whimsy to all this serious night time work. The donut baker, for example, posing in front of a silly-looking contraption with a smiling (and a hungry-hopeful cat nearby) has lots of donut decisions: "Cream-filled? Sprinkley? Tutti-frutti co-co? Caramel-mint or pistachio rococo? Brocoli-nut, healthy whole wheat? Which one will she sample on her 4:00 am break? Hartland brings all these colorful night shift workers together for breakfast at the place where the night meets the day--a 24-hour diner. And just outside, refreshed from a calm and restful sleep, we see the kids briefly introduced at the story's beginning ("wishing [they] didn't have to go to bed just yet"), walking by on their way to school. In sum, "Night Shift" exhibits a superb blend of design, structure, story, writing, and illustration, and I recommend it with great enthusiasm.

Children often find guessing games a source of amusement, and night-time activities a source of intrigue. Night Shift has a good dose of both, with fascinating job descriptions linked together across the pages. Over the course of a single night that progressively moves towards daybreak, the reader meets people who work in a variety of occupations. Each worker somehow bumps into the next as the reader turns the page to guess which job it will be. Colorful illustrations and the upbeat prose enhance the book's appeal. Parents and teachers will find Night Shift a valuable tool for teaching children about human resources and different types of employment.