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Summary
Summary
A clever picture book about a multi-level apartment building's occupants and their many nighttime noises.
It's a noisy night in this city building! The residents of each floor can hear their neighbors above them, and are wondering what's going on above their heads. Climb floor by floor and page by page to find out whose singing, dancing, cheering, and cooing are keeping a grumpy old man awake.
With innovative split-level spreads that offer the feeling of climbing an apartment building floor by floor, this clever and colorful collaboration between New York Times -bestselling author Mac Barnett and gifted illustrator Brian Biggs offers an irresistible investigation of one noisy night.
Author Notes
Mac Barnett is a New York Times bestselling author of books for children. His picture book Extra Yarn won a 2013 Caldecott Honor and the 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. He also writes the Brixton Brothers series of mystery novels. He co-wrote Battle Bunny with Jon Scieszka which was a New York Times bestseller. Barnettt's book, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, illustrated by Jon Klassen, made the New York Times bestseller list in October 2014. It also won an E.B. White Read-Aloud Award 2015 in the picture book category.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-This rousing selection opens with a boy being kept awake by sounds coming from the apartment above his bedroom. The lad wonders what is going on. The audible commotion stems from a man singing opera, who, in turn, wonders about sounds above his head. This leads to a lively chain of characters, each on subsequent levels of a high-rise building, producing noise and then musing about the sounds they hear from above. These additional noises are in turn produced by a baby, sheep, cowboys, a young trumpet player, a crow, cheerleaders, dancers, and, finally, an old man directing them to go to bed. This title invites audience participation; young listeners can chime in with the swift, repetitive text or by reproducing the variety of sound effects. The book's cover nicely establishes the night setting and offers readers a good sense of where the story takes place. Spirited cartoonish illustrations enhance the mood by visually magnifying the evening chaos described in the text. Children's curiosity will be piqued by illustrations with partial glimpses at floors above; these images allow readers or listeners a chance to predict who or what might be making the noises. Vibrant oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples, and reds stand out against the heavy black lines used to separate apartment floors. Attention given to artwork details can be seen in the patterned wallpaper, which varies from floor to floor. VERDICT The writing style and energetic illustrations tell an amusing tale that will be a rollicking bedtime or storytime read-aloud.-Lynn Vanca, Freelance Librarian, Akron, OH © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
It's late, and no one is being very neighborly in the apartment building at the center of this unruly story. A well-matched Barnett (The Magic Word) and Biggs (Tinyville Town Gets to Work!) start on the first floor, where a kid is awakened by noise from the apartment above. "What is going la la la above my head?" the boy asks. The answer is revealed on the next spread: "A man is singing opera above my head." This pattern repeats for on each of the building's 10 floors, with disturbances at each stop ("rah rah rah" "cha cha cha"), until a cranky old man in the top apartment shuts the whole thing down with an emphatic "Go to bed!" Funky choices in color, texture, and typography lend an appropriate devil-may-care air to Biggs's spreads, and he cleverly teases each successive vignette by letting a slice of it peek through, like film caught between frames. The improbable cast-which includes a sheep, pair of cowboys, and a cheerleading squad-and their percussive exclamations will elicit plenty of bedtime chuckles. Ages 4-8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* One of the problems of high-rise living is getting a good night's sleep with all those noisy neighbors. On the first floor, a little one can't get her rest, because something is going LaLaLa above her head. Two legs partially visible on the floor above hint at what's to come. Turn the page and a frizzy-haired mustachioed opera singer is practicing an aria. On ascending floors, a baby noisily coos (MaMaMa), cowboys laugh (HawHawHaw), cheerleaders leap (RahRahRah), and so on. Top floor? A pajama-clad bearded curmudgeon angrily shouts, Go to bed! The last page (ZZZ) shows the old man finally sleeping soundly in a blue-black room. The fun is seeing the clues at the top of each page and guessing who or what the next noisemakers will be. Barnett cleverly packs a punch with his spare text as he builds each surprise up to a humorous crescendo. Biggs' enticing cover is an homage to Chicago Imagist artist Roger Brown, whose distinctive painting style often depicts nocturnal cityscapes with black silhouettes of people glimpsed through windows of apartment buildings. Children will want to return to this witty cover to catch glimpses of all the characters they've met ascending from floor to floor. The interior's bright pages explode with color illustrating the various sound-makers gleefully going about their cacophonous activities.--Gepson, Lolly Copyright 2016 Booklist