The Night Worker - Softcover

Banks, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374400008 ISBN 13: 9780374400002

Publisher: Square Fish, 2007

Synopsis

Going to the job site with Dad

When darkness falls and bedtime comes, Papa tucks Alex in, then puts on his hard hat and goes to work. Papa is an engineer who works at night. "Take me with you," Alex says. "Not tonight," says Papa. But one night Papa has a surprise -- a hard hat for Alex! He takes Alex with him to the construction site, where excavators rumble and cement mixers hum. As his dream comes true, Alex gets to be a night worker just like Papa. Kate Banks's evocative text and Georg Hallensleben's colorful paintings combine to make a unique bedtime book that will delight all children, especially those who are fascinated by big machines.

The Night Worker is a 2001 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

About this title

Review:

Every night, Alex's night-working father kisses him good night, then puts on his hard hat and goes out to work. One night Papa surprises his son with his very own hard hat and invites him along. The mysterious world they enter is very different from Alex's daytime life. The streets are populated with delivery people, street sweepers, and dog walkers. But most exciting of all is Papa's construction site, where the rattle and clang of heavy machinery means that a big building is going up. Alex watches as the bulldozers, cement mixers, and cranes do their jobs, and he even gets a chance to be a night worker himself for a brief, shining moment!

Seen through a small boy's eyes, the construction site with its "midnight mountain" of soil and excavators that "groan like a giant rolling over in bed," is a truly wondrous, memorable event. Georg Hallensleben's heavy outlines and thick, muted nighttime colors melt together like liquid crayons. Alex's pride and curiosity in his father's life--and his father's reciprocal desire to share his adult world with his son--is touching and sincere. This is a lovely book for families to read together as a touch-off point for discussions about just what mom and dad do when they head off to work every day. Kate Banks and Hallensleben have teamed up on several other notable and award-winning picture books, including And If the Moon Could Talk. (Ages 4 to 7) --Emilie Coulter

From the Inside Flap:

Night falls. Bedtime comes. Papa kisses Alex good night. Then he puts on his hard hat. He is an engineer. And he is a night worker.

One night, Papa has a hard hat for his son, and they go out together to be night workers.

About this edition

• Publisher: Square Fish
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0374400008
• ISBN 13: 9780374400002
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Hallensleben Georg