by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 02, 2010

The Dark, Dark Night is a very cute story about happy animals. It starts with a happy frog, who wakes after spending the winter under  a stone, and springs up into the air. He greets his friends Badger and Hedgehoo, and plays a game with his friends Rabbit and Mouse -
leapfrog, of course! But on the way home, he's startled by his shadow behind him, and assumes it's a huge black Pond Monster coming out of the reeds!

It's an "oversized" book - it's 11 x 10 inches - so the colorful pictures feel enormous (especially when there's a two-page spread)! The speckly frog fills a whole page as he leaps over a rock to greet the springtime - arms spread, legs relaxed as he flies by. The illustrations are cheerful and sunny - at least when the story is beginning. But the frog still looks silly when nighttime comes, as he gapes and panics over the newly-discovered "pond monster"!

Jane Chapman drew the illustrations, and she has fun showing exactly what the frog sees. There's the yellow glow of a small lantern behind the frog, and then the frog himself - lit up from behind. The frog is facing a row of reeds, and of course the lantern casts a long shadow across it. And Chapman switches to a lighter pastel-blue background to set a cheerier tone as the frog rushes to his friends for help.

M. Christina Butler does a good job telling the story, making sure the reader knows that there's a friendly relationship between her characters. Hedgehog laughs when he hears about the Pond Monster, but agrees to check things out. (And so does Frog's other friend, Mouse.) The illustrations show the lantern lighting the friends' way as they walk together through the swamp's dark grass. And of course, when they get to the row of reeds, there's a monster-like shadow that's even bigger than before.

"Run! Run!" cries the hedgehog.  "Pond Monster! Pond Monster!"

Soon Rabbit is involved - which makes the shadow look even stranger. (It's appears to have big spikes - from the prickles of the hedgehog - and the rabbit's long ears look like horns! I think young readers will appreciate this story, since it lets them laugh at fear itself while they know that the situation isn't really scary. Again the animals return to the reeds, letting the story repeat its familiar pattern.

Woo-woo! howled the wind.
Squeak-squeak! went the lanterns.
"Wait for me!" cried Mouse.
And the dark was all around...

Learn more about this author, Moe Zilla.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.