The Night Worker

Every night, Alex's night-working father kisses him good night, then puts on his hard hat and goes out to work. One night Papa surprises his son with his very own hard hat and invites him along. The mysterious world they enter is very different from Alex's daytime life. The streets are populated with delivery people, street sweepers, and dog walkers. But most exciting of all is Papa's construction site, where the rattle and clang of heavy machinery means that a big building is going up. Alex watches as the bulldozers, cement mixers, and cranes do their jobs, and he even gets a chance to be a night worker himself for a brief, shining moment!

Seen through a small boy's eyes, the construction site with its "midnight mountain" of soil and excavators that "groan like a giant rolling over in bed," is a truly wondrous, memorable event. Georg Hallensleben's heavy outlines and thick, muted nighttime colors melt together like liquid crayons. Alex's pride and curiosity in his father's life--and his father's reciprocal desire to share his adult world with his son--is touching and sincere. This is a lovely book for families to read together as a touch-off point for discussions about just what mom and dad do when they head off to work every day. Kate Banks and Hallensleben have teamed up on several other notable and award-winning picture books, including And If the Moon Could Talk. (Ages 4 to 7) --Emilie Coulter