*Picture book for infants to Kindergarteners, contemporary fiction
*Little girl and her dog as main characters
*Rating: With less than 25 words and wonderful illustrations, Susan Gal tells a cute story of a girl’s night and all the lights that brighten it up in Night Lights.

Short, short summary: A little girl rides her bike with her mom and lights up the night with “headlights.” Their cute and very smart dog greets them at the door lit with a “porch light,” and they are ready for a birthday cook out with “firelight,” “firefly light,” and “candlelight.” When a storm makes them rush inside, the girl and her dog get ready for bed, even catching some suspicious creatures enjoying the leftover marshmallows outside in the “spotlight.” All is well when they go to bed, and the room is lit with a “night-light” and “moonlight.”

So, what do I do with this book?

1. Give children enough time to study the illustrations because these pictures are what actually tell the story in Night Lights. Ask them to notice what the pictures are telling them. Ask them, “What is this story about?” “How do you know–through the words or pictures or both?” You can also ask them a simple question like, “What do you notice in these illustrations?” Young children will love this book because it has few words per page and wonderful illustrations, and those things hold their attention–in a group setting or before bedtime. If they listen to Night Lights by Susan Gal enough, they will be able to “read” it with you.

2. The publisher on the jacket copy suggests this book can be used with children who have a fear of nighttime or the dark to show them how many lights actually exist at night. This is a good idea (unless your child or your students are afraid of the “lightning!” page). You can ask children to tell you what lights they notice at night. They can also draw a nighttime scene with lights in it from the book such as a moon, lamp, fireflies, and so on.

3. As a shared writing activity, students could each suggest a type of light in their house or outside (found in the day or night), and you could write sentences on a chart like: Martha found a lamp. Bob found sunlight. Joshua found a flashlight. Then cut these sentences apart, and give them to the appropriate student. (At home, you can do this activity with your child, too, but you would allow them to choose which sentence they want to copy and illustrate.) Students copy the sentence the best they can at the bottom of their paper (or you can glue it on for them), and then they illustrate the picture.

If you are a preschool teacher or have a toddler or preschooler at home, Night Lights is one of those perfect books, in my opinion!

*Picture book for preschoolers through second graders
*Two young boys as main characters
*Rating: I am in love with Let’s Do Nothing! I laughed out loud at this picture book. Tony Fucile’s illustrations are hilarious, and the story is so cute!

Short, short summary: Frankie and Sal do not know what else to do with themselves. They have “played every sport ever invented, painted more pictures than Van Gogh, and baked enough cookies to feed a small country.” So, they decide to do nothing. But did you know that doing nothing is much harder than it seems? When Frankie tries to be as still as can be and imagine the things that Sal says to imagine, he just can’t do nothing. Even through Sal’s frustration, he still realizes that they have proved a very important point that the whole world should realize!

So, what do I do with this book?

1. Ask students what they would pretend to be if they had to sit still and do nothing. In the book, the boys pretend to be statues, trees, and buildings. You can do this as a shared writing activity for younger students, where you make a list on chart paper and each child comes up with an idea to illustrate. For older primary children who are reading Let’s Do Nothing!, you can ask them to write about this prompt in their reading response journals.

2. Is it impossible to do nothing? That’s what the boys say in the book. Ask children this question and brainstorm answers. You can even work this into a health lesson. What parts of the body are still working and moving when you are doing nothing? How about when you are sleeping? Why do these particular body systems continue to work even when you are doing nothing?

3. Ask children to tell you what they like to do when they are bored. Have they ever run into the same problem as Frankie and Sal in the book? How would they solve this problem? Help children to make a personal connection to the text. When students or your children make personal connections with Tony Fucile’s text, then they are improving their reading comprehension, which is a very important skill.

Have you read Let’s Do Nothing! with your class or your children? What did you think?