by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 06, 2010

"Night of the Gargoyles" offers exactly what you'd expect: spooky black and white illustrations and a story about gargoyles coming to life. Illustrator David Wiesner has won three different Caldecott Medals, plus two more Caldecott honors, over the course of his lifetime. But in 1994 he'd teamed up with Eve Bunting, contributing shadowy drawings like a black-and-white cartoon to show the mysterious gargoyles awakening. And Bunting maintains the sense of mystery with an abstract story about their journey through the night..

"...there is movement / in the shadowy corners / as the gargoyles creep / on stubs of feet..."

There's a drawing of a full moon rising over the church, as one gargoyle twists its head around while another gargoyle seems to be stretching its arms and yawning. The stone statues wake up - disturbing some nearby pigeons - and then from a distant perspective, they're seen lowering themselves down the roof. There's a room full of mummy sarcophaguses, and the gargoyles stare at it through the ceiling's skylight. And they peer again through a window, gaping with interest at the standing suits of armor inside.

Even the gargoyles themselves are described with an elaborate poetry. ("Or, tired of viewing, fly, if they have gargoyle wings, straight up to lick the stars with long, stone tongues, green-pickled at the edges.") Bunting describes their "pockmarked stone," and writes that when they arrive at a fountain they "gargoyle-hunch around the rim and gargoyle-grunt with friends from other corners..." But she keeps them mysterious, until eventually revealing what they're grunting about - how hot their perches are when the sun is high, and the leaves that wash along with the rain through their spouts.

"And then those birds / that come to rudely perch / and leave behind / their mottled stains."

Bunting dedicated the book to "Glenn, who admires gargoyles," and the book seems to show a real fascination for the stony creatures. It opens with a definition of gargoyle - "A waterspout in the form of a grotesque human or animal figure..." - and Wiesner's drawings recreate them accurately, along with their museum-like habitat. The gargoyles frighten a passing night watchman, and enjoy their bath in the fountain. But when the morning comes they fly back to their perches - "or wingless crawl up walls as spiders do." They return to their places on the ledges, and they stare unblinkingly, and wait.

Until the next night comes...

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