Module 3: Smoky Night-Written by Eve Bunting, Illustrated by David Dias

Picture taken from:

http://www.amazon.com/Smoky-Night-Eve-Bunting/dp/0152018840/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318198876&sr=1-1

Summary:

Smoky Night written by Eve Bunting and Illustrated by David Diaz is written in the perspective of a young boy experiencing riots in his neighborhood. The young boy lives in an apartment with his mother and orange cat and is observing the riots from an upstairs window. The child asks many questions about the people who are stealing and destroying the property of others and his mother calmly answers his questions with a straight-forward honesty. The child notices a woman in an apartment nearby getting robbed, the child explains that his mother does not shop from this woman because she is of a different ethnicity. The child eventually falls asleep only to be awakened a short time later by his mother telling him that their apartment is on fire and that they must flee. The child is very concerned about his orange cat, and begs the firefighters who have come to the scene to save his cat. 

The tenants are relocated to a shelter where the child is fed hot chocolate and told they can return to their home in a few days. The neighbor woman has lost her cat as well and is concerned about its well-being, just like the child. Eventually a firefighter returns the boy’s cat as well as the neighbor woman’s cat. Normally the two cat’s don’t get along, but in their fear, they were found snuggled up together hiding from the fire. The boy’s mother sees this and decides that she should befriend the neighbor woman she was so reluctant to trust. 

Citation:

Bunting, E. (1994). Smoky night. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt Brace & Company.

Impression:

Smoky Night by Eve Bunting caught my attention because of its subject matter and the beautiful way illustrator, David Diaz, caught the emotion of the story. Smoky Night was the 1995 Caldecott winner and Caldecott books are nominated on their illustrations alone, but I believe that this book needs both the works and the illustrations to work together to bring the true emotional punch.

 Smoky Night was written in reaction to the Los Angeles Riots though the eyes of a small child. The illustrations are vivid, yet blocky with images boarded by frames made of found objects. The child’s views and the harsh-almost broken looking illustrations bring the reality of the riots to the reader, but also portray the hope and beauty that a child can see in the world in the midst of tragedy. “Smoky Night” is a great example of how to tell a troubling history lesson to a child. The story is straight forward, but ends with a great sense of promise and hope. 

Review:

Illustrated by David Diaz. Daniel's mother explains that the rioting in the street outside their apartment "can happen when people get angry." The aberrant behavior of the people who are smashing windows, cars, and street lights and the looters who look angry and happy at the same time fascinate Daniel. When the smell of smoke wakens the two of them during the night, they flee to a shelter with other residents of their building. Daniel is frantic because he cannot locate his cat, Jasmine. Mrs. Kim's mean orange cat, who always fights with Jasmine, is missing, too. Daniel and his mother don't have too much to do with Mrs. Kim and do not shop at Kim's Market because "Mama says it's better if we buy from our own people." Eventually, a fire fighter appears at the shelter with one cat under each arm, claiming to have discovered the cats "holding paws" under the stairs of the burning building. When the cats drink from the same dish, Daniel observes that the animals might not have previously liked each other because they didn't know each other. Silence follows Daniel's innocent comment, until his mother introduces herself to Mrs. Kim: "My name is Gena. Perhaps when things settle down you and your cat will come over and share a dish of milk with us." Clearly, the African-American woman's attempt to reach out to the Korean-American woman is a result of surviving the riots together and understanding the commonality of their lives. Although the CIP page mentions that these events took place during the recent Los Angeles riots, young readers may need some additional explanation, since the setting is not mentioned anywhere in the book. Diaz's bold artwork is a perfect match for the intensity of the story. Thick black lines border vibrant acrylic paintings that are reminiscent of Picasso's early work, especially in the composition of the characters' faces. Diaz's work also evokes images of the French impressionist Georges Rouault and of the early books of John Steptoe, both of whom used black to outline individual elements in their paintings. Diaz places these dynamic paintings on collages of real objects that, for the most part, reinforce the narrative action. For example, a painting of Daniel observing someone looting a dry cleaners is superimposed on a collage composed of wire hangers and clothes wrapped in clear plastic. Because each double-page spread is so carefully designed, because the pictorial elements work together harmoniously, the overall effect is that of urban energy, rather than cacophony. Both author and illustrator insist on a headlong confrontation with the issue of rapport between different races, and the result is a memorable, thought-provoking book.

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By Ellen Fader

Citation:

Fader, E. (1994). [Smoky night] [book review]. Horn Book Magazine, 70(3), 308-309. Retrieved from www.hbook.com

Uses:

• Have a craft night where children write their own books and decorate the stories using found objects like the illustrations in Smoky Night.
• Put the book in a book display with the theme of modern history.