The House in the Night [Hardcover]

*Starred Review* A young girl is given a golden key to a house. “In the house / burns a light. / In that light / rests a bed. On that bed / waits a book.” And so continues this simple text, which describes sometimes fantastical pleasures as a bird from the book spirits the child through the starry sky to a wise-faced moon. The cumulative tale is a familiar picture-book conceit; the difference in success comes from the artwork. Here, the art is spectacular. Executed in scratchboard decorated in droplets of gold, Krommes’ illustrations expand on Swanson’s reassuring story (inspired by a nursery rhyme that begins, “This is the key of the kingdom”) to create a world as cozy inside the house as it is majestic outside. The two-page spread depicting rolling meadows beyond the home, dotted with trees, houses, barns, and road meeting the inky sky, is mesmerizing. The use of gold is especially effective, coloring the stars and a knowing moon, all surrounded with black-and-white halos. A beautiful piece of bookmaking that will delight both parents and children. Preschool-Kindergarten.
(Booklist -Ilene Cooper )

A spare, patterned text and glowing pictures explore the origins of light that make a house a home in this bedtime book for young children. Naming nighttime things that are both comforting and intriguing to preschoolersa key, a bed, the moonthis timeless book illuminates a reassuring order to the universe.

Caldecott Medal winner Beth Krommes is the illustrator of several award-winning books. She said that she first fell in love with meadows and the outdoors on childhood trips to her grandmother's house, surrounded by meadows, on the side of Sugarloaf Mountain in Pennsylvania. Now she draws and reads and dreams in a tall house among the pines and maples of Peterborough, New Hampshire, where she lives with her family. Visit her website at www.bethkrommes.com.

Susan Marie Swanson is an award-winning poet of several children's books. She lives in Minnesota, where she often works in schools as a poet-in-residence. 

Here is the key to the house In the house burns a light In that light rests a bed On that bed waits a book . . .