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.

Light the Night: It's A Firefly Night by Dianne Ochiltree

WHEN THE MOON IS HIGH

AND THE STARS ARE BRIGHT,

DADDY TELLS ME

IT'S A FIREFLY NIGHT.

There are warm nights in early summer when an ordinary backyard is bright with magical lights, a night when the fireflies, or lightning bugs, first appear, lifting off from the ground and slowly ascending through the air to the trees, dip... flash... dip... flash...dip... flash.

In their nightclothes, a pink gown for the girl, bathrobe and slippers for Dad, the two go outside into the early moonlight. The girl, filled with that primeval urge to capture a piece of that magic for herself, has a big jar in which she proceeds to capture one, two, three, four fireflies until at last she has ten, making a little lantern of greenish light that she can hold in her hands.

I LOVE CATCHING FIREFLIES

BUT THEY ARE NOT MINE.

I TAKE ONE GENTLY

OUT OF THE JAR.

In that peculiar way of the lightning bug, slowly climbing up the hand until it reaches the highest point before it carefully opens its carapace and spreads its wings, all ten of the fireflies are set free to rise again through the air until her jar is again empty, leaving her hoping that

... TOMORROW WILL BE A FIREFLY NIGHT.

In their just-published It's a Firefly Night (Blue Apple, 2013) Dianne Ochiltree's lyric verse and Betsy Snyder's soft color collages convey something of the wonder and excitement of a summer night lit by those mystery bugs capable of generating light without heat. The author and illustrator together catch some of that joy of childhood, running barefoot through the twilight to catch and hold a bit of that wondrous light in hand, and then setting it free to light another night.  The author also appends a double-page spread of firefly facts which only add to the fascination of these truly phenomenal little beetles.