THE NIGHT OF THE WHIPPOORWILL
edited by Nancy Larrick & illustrated by David Ray
A stellar addition to Larrick's many themed anthologies, with powerful illustrations that plunge the reader/listener into a mysterious, moon-washed world. The 34 poems, mostly from this century, come from such authors as de la Mare, Sandburg, Langston Hughes, Jarrell, McCord, Merriam, and Yolen, plus a few Native American and other traditional sources; they are artfully sequenced from a first poem about the deepening dark to a last two telling of the dawn; between are the moon, the Milky Way, nocturnal animals, and night in the city and on water, in wind and in storm. Ray's soft, dark acrylics, swirling with cloud, stardust, and mist, are extraordinarily sensitive to the texts. Some of his subtle touches are lovely: the moon seen through a moth's gossamer wings, stars mirrored in a stream, a stained-glass window reflected on a wet sidewalk. The text is effectively superimposed on blowing curtain, snowfield, fogbank, or cloud. Perfect, save for a flaw in the opening sequence when the moon rises where the sun has just set- -which is a pleasant visual conceit (also to be observed in Wiesner's Tuesday, 1991) but an astronomical impossibility. For an older audience than that of Larrick's When the Dark Comes Dancing (1983); a must. Fully indexed. (Poetry/Picture book. 7+)