The House in the Night

The House in the Night is by Susan Marie Swanson and illustrated by Beth Krommes. The target audience of this book is preschool through first grade boys and girls. This book was the winner of the 2009 Randolph Caldecott Medal.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars ****

Summary: This story is about a child who becomes involved with a bedtime story. It is ambiguous whether or not the child is a boy or a girl making it appealing to both sexes.

This is a simple story that is hard not to love. The book was inspired by “This is the key to the kingdom” and other Oxford Nursery Rhymes making it easy to use in a poetry or creative writing unit in school. In my classroom I would use this book to talk about poetry specifically. This book is essentially one big poem with few words per page. It uses a lot of repetition such as 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. The last part of every sentence is incorporated into the beginning of the next. This is an unusual and creative way of writing that students can be exposed to in a simple way. There is a certain cadence to the story within the text that is often also found in poetry too. The text flows well from one page to the next making a smooth transition from one part of the story to the next. The book is simple enough to use within a first grade curriculum. This would be an easy way to introduce poetry.

The only apprehension I would have about using this in a classroom setting is that it should really be used with younger kids. This book is too easy and might come off as boring for older students so make sure this book is used with a younger audience for it to have a full effect and be the most useful within a classroom! This book is typically seen as a bedtime story but it can also be a useful classroom tool. 

The illustrations of The House in the Night are beautiful. They were created with watercolor and scratchboard. The detail is unbelievable and really helps bring the story to life. They are mostly composed of black and white but yellow is found within the pages highlighting important attribute of the pictures. The ideas behind the illustrations are very simple to go along with the simple text but the amount of detail makes the pictures complex and imaginative. The illustrations are mostly why I am so drawn to this book. It really continues the uniqueness of the book beyond its uncharacteristic text of a children’s picture book. To me, this book is really one of a kind. I have never come across a picture book with poetry incorporated into its text the way it is constructed by Susan Marie Swanson.