Night Life: Red and Yellow's Noisy Night by Josh Selig

ONE NIGHT YELLOW WAS GETTING READY FOR BED WHEN THERE WAS A VERY LOUD NOISE.

IT WAS RED, PLAYING HIS STRUMMY.

Yellow and Red are as different as, well, daylight and dark. Yellow is plump and placid; Red is fit and frenetic; Yellow is a morning person; Red is obviously a night owl. Yellow just wants to sleep; Red wants to swing and play the night away.

It's an impasse, a standoff in the olive tree.

Yellow pulls his pillow over his head to muffle Red's music, while Red just pumps up the tempo, jacking up the volume to entice his friend to join in. It's LOUD! Yellow can't sleep with all that noise, and Red just has to jazz it up on his strummy! Can this conflict be resolved?

It can and is, in Josh Selig's Red & Yellow's Noisy Night (The Olive Branch) (Sterling, 2012) as Red figures out that strummies can swing both ways: he can play more mellow music, a lulling lullaby that gently floats Yellow off to his desired dreamland. All's well in Olive Tree land, as Yellow snores while Red strums softly. Selig's illustrations, based on the international cartoon show, have the necessary verve and energy to extend the super simple text, deftly delineating these two very different characters and their rational compromis to keep the peace in their tree. Not a bad thought with which to fall asleep!