Yeti, Turn Out the Light!

July 22, 2013
There’s nothing more frightening than a yeti—unless that yeti is frightened. This one is a homely fellow with red eyes, gray-blue fur, and snaggleteeth, and he’s snuggled in bed in his underground forest lair (where his rustic decor includes a birch-bark lampshade). He’d like to go to sleep, but he keeps seeing scary shadows—the kind with tendrils and
claws that spill from wall to ceiling. Fortunately, the book’s page-turns always reveal them to have been cast by groups of harmless, liquid-eyed forest creatures who have come to visit: “On the light goes,/ and to Yeti’s surprise,/ he sees only bunnies,/ and their big bunny eyes.” Kirwan dials the visiting animals’ cuteness factor to the max, and her exuberantly colored spreads have the look of ’60s TV cartoons; the writers are the founders of GAMAGO, a West Coast design firm. The complex shadows correspond, more or less, to the strange postures the animals take—a terrifying Frankenstein’s monster shadow, for example, proves to be an owl sitting on a bear’s head with a teapot in its wing. It’s a cheerfully executed, laugh-out-loud exploration of fear and the dark. Ages 3–5.

June 15, 2013
When a yeti gets a case of the heebie-jeebies, then something clearly is amiss. Readers meet Long and Edmundson's Yeti, a yeti, as the day draws to a close. He heads to his cave, has some spaghetti and meatballs, flosses and hits the sack. But Yeti can't sleep, as shadows lurk, "dart[ing] frightfully near! // They dance up the wall, / and, my, are they scary! / Oh, what could they be? / Yeti is wary...." Yeti flicks on the light. Three jewel-eyed bunnies stand there. The rabbits join Yeti in bed, off goes the light, and back come the shadows. This goes on as Yeti discovers a horde of his pals come to visit, until he shoos them to their respective beds and finally gets some shut-eye. This is a gentle and empathetic approach to the bedtime skitters, with a good and clear explanation for something that bedevils most kids when there is just enough light to conjure those creepy shadows. Kirwan's artwork is not just luscious, but also smart and inviting in style, the matte colors effectively evoking scary shadows as well as laughably nonthreatening friends once the light is on. A well-told tale of nighttime collywobbles, suitable for framing. (Picture book. 3-5)

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