Firefighters In The Dark

By Dashka Slater

Book Overview

At night, a girl hears the sirens from the fire station near her house. Even though it is dark outside, she knows where they are going: to a castle, to a garden, all the way to Pluto . . . Dashka... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618554599
• ISBN13: 9780618554591
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.3" x 10.0"
• Age Range: 4 to 7 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 2

Customer Reviews

Beautiful illustrations, sweet story

This is amazing. I cannot believe I never heard of this book before! It's clearly a bedtime story, though you can read it at any time. The focus of the book isn't on firefighters in the typical way, it's on a little girl making up bedtime stories about where the firefighters near her go every night. The illustrations, first off, are gorgeous. I would have wanted this book for the pictures alone. At one point, the girl says that the firefighters are never scared, and are as strong as tigers, and you can see how she turns the stripes on their uniforms into tiger stripes to finish the metaphor. The story, though - wow. The author has managed to pretty much capture a kid's storytelling sense. The firefighters, in her mind, put out fires from a woman eating peppers in Mexico, or from a dragon trying to cool off his food in a castle. At one point, the firefighters (she pictures them as a diverse group, with two men and two women, a nice touch) save a boy who jumps all the way to Mars. "You can't go to Mars like that, you need a spacesuit and your mittens!" It's such a simple story, but beautifully told and illustrated. You're missing out if you don't immediately run and purchase this for your library. Don't have kids? Get it for yourself! Get it for a local school! Just get it.

Magical Illustrations, Questionable Ending

I came to this book following the trail of Nicoletta Ceccoli, illustrator extraordinaire. My daughter and I plunged into it and were fascinated by the oniric images supporting the playful and imaginative tale. But I don't know quite what to make of the image and concept of a moustached firefighter appearing at the window of a little girl in the middle of the night, arms reaching for her. Of course, this is a magical tale and there is no danger: the firefighters take her to outer space to spray the stars, all in good fun. Still, I did not quite like that image, I felt it was out of place in the book.

We are on the thousandth read of this book...

...and you would think that I'd be bored from reading it over and over, but somehow I am not. This book isn't really about firefighters, it's about a young girl's imagination and what she imagines the firefighters do. She hears the fire engine's siren outside her window at night, and she spins these tales that are imbued with a dreamlike quality, almost as if she is drifting off to sleep. They douse a fire at a medieval castle inadvertently ignited by a dragon; he has stopped in for dinner and blown on his potatoes to cool them with his fire breath. They head to a fire all the way in Mexico that started when a woman eats a chili pepper in her garden that is so hot, embers shoot out from her mouth. The ladder crew retrieves a young boy who has bounced so high on his bed that he launched himself all the way to Pluto. He must return home because he doesn't have the right gear on, that is, a spacesuit and mittens. Of course, because it falls to the girl's imagination to name them, they don't have names like Joe and Dave. They have the names Penelope, Almondine, King and, the one conventional name, Bruce. Imagine several four or five-year olds explaining to you their most fanciful ideas of what firefighters do and this is a composite of those stories. Every detail about the firefighters envisioned by the narrator is so completely true to a young child's imagination, thought-process and rationale, right down to the naming of the firefighters and the non sequitur enumerating of what foods they like to eat. Only a kid would include a list of foods each firefighter enjoys. It's actually quite hilarious. My two-year old daughter most enjoys doing her impression of the father of the boy who bounced to Pluto with her gruff grown-up voice yelling "Come down here right now, it's time for bed." Only a ridiculous grown-up would say something so deflating and practical at a time like that. The dreamy quality of the illustrations perfectly compliments the text. Nicoletta Ceccoli always renders the most elegant images, here as in Little Red Riding Hood and Island in the Sun.

A firefighter book for girls!

My three year old daughter is fascinated by firefighters and fire trucks but almost all of the toddler books we've seen on that topic are aimed at young boys and this book is a great alternative. It tells the story of a young girl who lives near a fire station and what she imagines/dreams the firefighters are doing when she hears their sirens at night (putting out one fire in a castle that was started by a dragon and another that was caused by a woman in mexico eating hot chili peppers) as well as silly things about the firefighters themselves. A great book with a wonderful dreamlike quality and fantastic illustrations.

Not your typical firefighters book

This is a blessed relief from the run of the mill firefighters book. The text is magical, whimsical and dreamy, and the illustrations are just as outstanding. It reads like the dream of a particularly imaginative kid, which makes it fun to read as a parent. You most definately will not groan when your tot wants you to read it again. And again. And again. You know what I mean. If your kid likes firefighters, this is a must have.