Good Night Engines

November 3, 2003
Playing to kids' perennial fascination with vehicles, this bedtime book—Mortensen's debut—uses truncated rhyming verse to describe how a train, 18-wheel truck, fire engine, etc., slow down at the end of the day: "Jumbo jet plane/ cleared to land./ Downward, roaring/ turbofan./ Wheels on runway in a rush./ Grinding. Stopping. Resting./ Hush." The level of detail will suit preschoolers, as will the rhythms, but what will almost certainly command the audience's attention is Iwai's (Snuggle Mountain
) visual interpretation. Her velvety acrylics create a modest but effective story line, about a boy giving his toys a final spin before going to bed. Pictures of the boy alternate with images of the real-life vehicles. Readers meet the boy while he is busy with his toy trains; the next spread shows a sleek passenger train speeding across a bridge. The two strands meet in a fitting conclusion. A mother tucks the boy in bed and darkens his room ("Turn off motor,/ switch off light") as the text invites the "tired engine" to say good night. This sweet book will help motor-happy readers to put their own engines in idle. Ages 2-6.

December 1, 2003
PreS-Gr 2-In this imaginative bedtime story, a little boy is putting his toy cars, trucks, train, and plane away for the night. As he guides the train along the windowsill one last time, a real one "thunders down the line" and quietly comes to rest. He brings his vehicles into safe quarters just as the neighborhood autos arrive at their carports. On the final page, the child sleeps in his bed, cradling a red toy car, his engine spent. Told in rhyme, the story is as smooth and easy as a familiar lullaby: "Wheels on runway in a rush./Grinding. Stopping. Resting./Hush." Iwai's acrylic, full-page spreads match the quiet text. Dominant colors reflect the shifting light, so that the pinks and oranges of the early pages give way to deeper purples and blues by book's end. The perspective changes not only from the boy's room to the outside world, but also from the scale of his playthings to the objects beyond. Children will relate to this depiction of this end-of-day ritual, and the book is sure to appeal to kids who love big rigs.-Shawn Brommer, South Central Library System, Madison, WI

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2003
PreS. In her first picture book, Mortensen tells a very simple, rhyming goodnight story for toddler truck-and-engine lovers who must turn off their toy motors, switch off their lights, and go to sleep. The few words and Iwai's big, dramatic, double-page acrylic paintings connect the child's play on his bedroom floor with the exciting, cars, rigs, fire engines, and jet planes that roar outside his window. Both the real machines and the toys must stop and "park" in the "almost dark." The unforced rhyme beautifully expresses both the rush of the wheels and then the hush as they come "Grinding. Stopping. Resting." Like the big rigs coming into the truck stop, the boy rolls off to bed. His sister kisses him good night, and he falls asleep with a truck in his hand. Pair this with Margaret Wise Brown's classic " Good Night, Moon."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)