Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Night of the Gargoyles
Illustrator: David Wiesner
Picture Book
For ages 5 to 7
Clarion Books, 1999 ISBN: 0395968879
In the city, the stone gargoyles stare out with “unblinking” eyes from their high vantage points at the tops of buildings. Then night comes and the gargoyles blink, yawn, and stretch. They move across the roofs and peer into the museum windows to gaze at Egyptian mummies and medieval armor.
The gargoyles with wings swoop down to perch in trees and to gather around a fountain where they play in the water and socialize with others of their kind. They complain of hot days, clogged gutters, and disrespectful birds who sit on their heads. They are seen by a night watchman who tries to share what he has seen with another man, but the night watchman’s story is dismissed out of hand. Whoever heard of gargoyles moving?
In this wonderful picture book David Wiesner’s gray scale artwork is paired with Eve Bunting’s lyrical text to take readers into a world where stone gargoyles come to life. Readers are going to enjoy seeing what these stone monsters are like and what they do when night falls.
