Night of the Gargoyles

by Eve Bunting, David Wiesner (Illustrator)

Overview

In this stunning collaboration of two exceptional talents, the striking charcoal illustrations and nimble text reveal what happens at night when the gargoyles come to life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780395968871
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/23/1999
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.06(w) x 11.25(h) x 0.12(d)
Lexile:	AD910L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

About the Author

Eve Bunting was the beloved, award-winning author of more than two hundred and fifty books for young people, including the Caldecott Medal-winning Smoky Night, illustrated by David Diaz, The Wall, Fly Away Home, and Train to Somewhere.

David Wiesner is internationally renowned for his visual storytelling and has won the Caldecott Medal three times—for Tuesday, The Three Pigs, and Flotsam—the second person in history to do so. He is also the recipient of three Caldecott Honors, for Free Fall, Sector 7, and Mr. Wuffles. He lives near Philadelphia with his family. david-wiesner.harpercollins.com

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

October 1, 1994 Ages 4-8. In a macabre and funny picture book, those stone gargoyles that squat all day on public buildings get free at night and come down from their shadowy corners. Bunting's words are creepy and poetic, scary because they are so physically precise. The stone creatures are "pock-marked," their tongues "green-pickled at the edges." They have unblinking, bulging eyes and their mouths gape like empty suits of armor in museum halls. Wiesner's duotone charcoal illustrations capture the huge heaviness of the stone figures and their gloomy malevolence as they bump and fly and tumble free in the dark. They are so ugly. They're like fiends that come from the graves at night. They're also very human. Wiesner's funniest scene is a double-page spread of a group of gargoyle creatures hunching and grunting together at a spitting water fountain. They could be the gossips and grousers at your local neighborhood hangout. This book is more a situation than a story, but it makes you face what you've always feared but hadn't quite seen. Even the word gargoyle makes you choke. Hazel Rochman Copyright© 1994, American Library Association. All rights reserved.
Booklist, ALA

Editorial Reviews

"Caldecott Medal-winner Wiesner's charcoal drawings are as breathtaking as Bunting's prose." Kirkus Reviews with Pointers —

From the Publisher

Moody, charcoal-powder drawings dramatize a tale of the secret life of gargoyles. In a starred review, PW called it "an unusually sophisticated work, playful but dark-edged." Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

K-Gr 3-What child hasn't looked at a sculpture or creatures carved in stone and wondered what would happen if they came to life? Bunting's canny phrasing and Wiesner's ominous black-and-white illustrations answer the question perfectly. When night comes, the gargoyles on a museum building come alive. They ``gargoyle-hunch'' with friends around a fountain, ``rumble-laugh'' at the night watchman, and resume their stone facades with empty eyes unblinking when morning arrives. If anyone could bring gargoyles to life pictorially, it's Wiesner. High-rise angles and perspectives are peopled with pigeons and squirrels; light is played against dark, forming menacing shadows; spreads and panels zoom in on narrow and wide-angle views; all creating a delicously eerie, spooky scenario. The brief text cunningly induces liveliness and wit with well-honed word choices: ``they grunt of what they've seen...they grump of summer passing...they boom those gargoyle laughs that rumble thick because there is no space inside their solid stone for laughs to somersault.'' This is not for very young children, but it's sure to have enormous appeal for older audiences. From stony-eyed stares to their merry scorn of humans, it's gargoyle gleefulness.-Julie Cummins, New York Public Library

School Library Journal