Smoky Night

Smoky Night By Eve Bunting and Illustrated by David Diaz

I think this would be a scary book for kids. It might put bad images in their heads that their neighborhoods are all going to have riots, that it is a common occurrence. Possibly their or fourth graders and up could handle this story. While I was reading, I questioned why they were rioting? I don't think there was any reason, it simply started on the first page. I think this might be the controversial part of the story.

I liked the ending of this book. In the beginning of the book it talks about how this little boys cat Jasmine and the neighbor's cat never got along, but after the fire in their apartment the fireman found them holding paws next to each other underneath the stairs. They become friends, and the boy suggests it was probably just because they didn't know each other at first. That is a perfect lesson to this story, to never be hateful to a person especially if you don't know them. However it also gives the idea that if we all got to know each other we wouldn't have riots. Is this the case? If we all knew each other would there be peace?

I loved the illustrations in the story. The pages were very unique, each page has a main picture that is a representation of that point in the story, and then instead of having white everywhere the background is covered. All of the pages are different but the backgrounds symbolize what is going on in the story at that time too. For example, on one page there is talk about a shoe store being robbed so the background is covered in soles of shoes. I also like the color of the skin on the peoples faces. They are a mixture of blues, yellows, reds, and purples. There is no set color of who these people are being "attacked."