Click!

March 30, 2015
The hero of artist Ebbeler’s (Tiger in My Soup) authorial debut looks like one of those old-fashioned drinking birds, with long legs, a pointy yellow beak, and a jaunty hat. It’s actually a bedside lamp, and a boy who is headed for bed turns it off, pulling the chain where its tail should be. “Click,” goes the lamp. “Yawn,” says the boy. Light shines through the open door, and the lamp-bird—viewers will quickly realize that it is a living being—hears something that needs investigating: “drip, drop, drip.” Turning itself back on, the bird sets off down the hall: “Tip, tap, click, click.” Its glowing bulb casts theatrically deep shadows and makes the bathroom’s chrome fixtures gleam. A faucet is dripping, and the bird turns it off with an acrobatic maneuver: “Ahh!” Downstairs, the bird sweeps up, adjusts a noisy rocking chair, and closes a window before returning to the bedside table. Not much happens, it’s true, but Ebbeler focuses on events with cinematic vividness, and the chance to be in on the bird-lamp’s secret activity offers a satisfaction all its own. Ages 3–6.

March 1, 2015
An industrious lamp in the shape of a bird fixes all things that go bump in the night.At bedtime, a young boy yawns, tosses, and turns, then drifts off to blissful sleep. Soon, noises throughout the supposedly quiet house begin to sound, and the boy's bedside lamp-bird can't resist investigating. With a "tip, tap, click, click," it springs down the hall on ostrichlike legs, its conical beak poised for action. How convenient that its torso contains a light bulb to illuminate the way! It hears "drip, drip, drop, drop" from the bathroom and dutifully cranks the bathtub faucet shut, much to the bath toys' relief. More noises follow, including sneezes, creaks, flaps, and rustles, which means more things to fix. The sweetest fix of all comes when a stuffed animal becomes separated from his boy. In his first picture book as both writer and illustrator, Ebbeler (The Only Alex Addleston in All These Mountains, 2014, etc.) embeds simple, audible text sparingly within the illustrations, to the fullest effect. No two reads will be the same, as he leaves room for lively interpretations. Although the text-sounds aren't unique, the lamp-bird is. Reminiscent of a vintage drinking-bird toy, this late-night fixer-upper will keep readers and listeners guessing whether it's part pelican, ostrich, chicken, or something of their own creation.An enjoyable bedtime story that demands to be heard. (Picture book. 3-6)

May 1, 2015
Preschool-G After a yawn and the click of its bulb turning off, a cheery bird lamp on a boy's nightstand settles in for a quiet night. Only it's not so quiet. First it hears a drip, drop, drip, so the bird makes its way down the hall with a tip, tap, click, click. Once it discovers the culpritthe bathtub faucetit quiets the noise, but that's only the first in a series of nighttime sounds the bird hushes while the boy slumbers. Ebbeler's lush acrylic paintings are full of warm colors and swooping shadows, and each household item has a friendly face subtle enough that spotting them becomes a fun game. The after-dark scenes evoke a quiet mood with only a few bouncy words in each scene, which is in sharp contrast to the double-page spread of close-set vignettes depicting the clanging, sizzling, tumbling, and vrooming the house makes during the day. Stuffed with onomatopoeic text that's a treat to read aloud, this tender tale will go a long way to assuage little ones' anxieties about nighttime noises.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)