Tonight and Tomorrow - Hardcover

Robin Ballard, was born in Los Angeles and attended the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. After several years in Washington, D.C., she now lives with her husband and sons in Switzerland. Ms. Ballard has written many popular books, including When We Get Home, When I Am a Sister, and Good-bye, House.

PreSchool-Grade 1-A young boy looks around his room at night, focusing on familiar items and thinking of what the dawn will bring. "A tiny night-light shines in the corner-Tomorrow when I get up, my room will be filled with light." There are occasional poetic moments, as in the description of the cat, "dreaming and twitching her whiskers." However, most sentences are short and static: "Next to the lamp is a photo in a frame." Additionally, the placement of the text makes the story a bit confusing (the nighttime scenes are always on the left, and the daytime previews and the text describing both scenarios are on the right). The saturated, soft pastel tones of the watercolor illustrations reinforce the reassuring tone of the text. The concept of time is often difficult for young children to grasp, and a better treatment is found in Lisa Grunwald's Now, Soon, Later (Greenwillow, 1996).
Robin L. Gibson, Muskingum County Library System, Zanesville, OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.