Flicker, Flicker! Good Night, Firefly by Gabriel Alborozo

THE ELECTRICITY WENT OUT!.

NINA WATCHED AS SCARY SHADOWS CREPT ACROSS HER WALLS.

Nina didn't exactly know that she was afraid of the dark, because her bedroom nightlight had always shed just the right amount of cozy yellow light.

But when the electricity went out... so did her nightlight! It was scary.

But Nina is too big to yell for her mom and dad. She tries to be brave, but it is SO dark! Wait! What's that?

OUTSIDE HER WINDOW NINA SAW A SOFT YELLOW GLOW.

Now Nina knows just what to do. She runs down the stars and outside the back door with her jar.

"COME ON, LITTLE GUY! COME WITH ME!"

Nina has her nightlight! With the little firefly in her jar, she goes upstairs and makes a tent from the sheet on her bed and reads her book. Then she makes shadow pictures on the walls, and she's still not tired.

Wait! Is the firefly light getting dimmer? Nina knows what she has to do next!

It's outside again with the firefly in the jar, and when Nina opens the lid, off her little nightlight flies, up into the trees, where she and her friends give Nina a gentle hint, spelling out...

"GOOD NIGHT, NINA!"

Luckily, Nina gets her little glowbug safely out of the jar and back to firefly business in time for their light show, in Gabriel Alborozo's Good Night, Firefly (Henry Holt and Company, 2015). Alborozo's digitally assisted drawings illuminate the dark in a light-hearted story of lighting the night the natural way. "The grand finale is lovely," says Kirkus Reviews.

For kids who are afraid of the dark, pair this one with Lizi Boyd's ALA Notable book, Flashlight (see review here), and for kids who just like the magic sparkle, read this one with Eric Carle's classic The Very Lonely Firefly.

Things That Go Bump in the Night: Small Blue and the Deep Dark Night by Jon Davis

SMALL BLUE THOUGHT OF CREEPY THINGS.

"GREMLINS AND GOBLINS, WITH EMPTY, RUMBLING BELLIES,

LICKING THEIR LIPS, WAITING FOR ME IN THE DARK!"

"BIG BROWN! BIG BROWN!" SHE CALLED.

Small Blue, a rabbity young thing, awakens in the middle of the night and thinks of terrible night visitors.

Big Brown, a rumpled sleepy-eyed brown bear, comes into her room, pats her head, and suggests that the things she imagines could just have likely been a "delightful doggies' unicycle convention!"

Little Blue doesn't think so, but when Big Brown turns on the light, there's nothing to see but her cozy room, toys scattered on the floor and books neatly shelved. Big Brown suggests they share cups of hot milk and talk about it all.

But the hall is dark, and Small Blue is sure that furry spiders and flappity bats are skulking there. Big Brown suggests perhaps a "smily spacemen's zero-gravity shindig" in progress instead.

"WELL, MAYBE..." SAID SMALL BLUE.

Big Brown hoists Little Blue to his shoulders as they head into the kitchen, where Little Blue opines that witches with warts and clacking skeletons await her. Big Brown adds an alternative: there could be ex-pirates sitting and  knitting socks at their yearly convention.

Small Blue admits that that could be true.

A flip of the light switch reveals just a homey and tidy tiled kitchen in soft chartreuse and yellow. Big Brown settles down with Little Blue in his lap, and as they sip their milk, they watch the moon and stars in the dark sky outside the window. Little Blue is getting into the spirit of things.

"MAYBE THE STARS ARE RUNNING A RELAY RACE AROUND THE MOON, WHILE THE PLANETS CHEER THEM ON," SAYS LITTLE BLUE....

From time immemorial, kids have wakened with night terrors of ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and all things that go bump in the night. Jon Davis' new book, Small Blue and the Deep Dark Night (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), takes a look at the flipside of the bedtime willies by suggesting that if we can conjure up scary critters, we can just as surely imagine silly stuff as well.

Davis sketches the perfect setting for this gentle tale, with his worried and wrinkly little rabbit and his rounded, rumply big brown bear, who, rather than ridiculing the youngster's imaginings, simply tops them with preposterous tall tale possibilities. The artist's backgrounds are homey and reassuring, done in a palette of pinkish browns and soft greens and grays and wiggly, broken black line, and his characters, even the imagined ones, are a bit retro, rather reminiscent of Herriman's Krazy Kat cartoon style, with just a hint of Pooh and Piglet's adventures--all calculated to banish the night terrors for young readers. This is a fine "bednight" story for young children to help keep the things that go bump in the night at bay.