HOW TO MAKE A NIGHT

In this captivating collaboration, a capable-looking lass takes charge when it’s time to clean up the day’s household wrack—“Train skipped the track. / Cat spilled the juice. / Cake’s on the floor. / Snake’s on the loose”—then slips outside to finish the job by roping in the Sun, replacing the sky’s blue with gold-spattered black, and calling in the night chorus of owls and crickets. Mixing clipped photos and fluently brushed paint, Tusa depicts both gloriously cluttered domestic scenes and a wide, fanciful outdoors, through all of which her mop-wielding, tartan skirt–clad young dynamo strides purposefully until—work done—she washes up and joins a notably diverse crew of siblings for dinner. Then she snuggles down in bed to rest until “it’s time to toss the sun up high and haul away the moon.” Ashman uses rhyme and rhythm masterfully to control the pace of this irresistible invitation to get off your duff. (Picture book. 5-8)