Bat Time

Before she goes to bed, Leila shares a special moment with her father, watching bats enjoying an insect feast in the backyard.

PreSchool-Grade 2-- Horowitz does a fine job of capturing a child's fascination with nature and her single-mindedness as well. Leila waits impatiently for it to become dark enough to go outside with her father and watch for the bats that swoop around her suburban house. The book has an intimate feeling in its conversations and pictures, and captures the warmth of a young family with a preschooler. The father feeds her, reads to her, puts her to bed, and best of all, shares in the nightly ritual of bat-watching. Although the illustrations work well with the story, the art is unexceptional representational drawings, done in a slightly waxy textured medium that appears to be some kind of crayon. The backgrounds are generally simple, with the figures appearing at times in a plain white space. The story will lend itself well to reading aloud and, with a little girl who loves bats as its heroine, it's a different kind of bedtime treat for family sharing.
- Marilyn Iarusso, New York Public Library
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Horowitz's first book warmly depicts one family's unusual bedtime ritual: Leila looks forward to her favorite time of day- -after bath and book and before tucking in, when she and Daddy watch the wonderful bats come out for the night, whizzing through fascinating acrobatics as they capture mosquitoes and other insects. Avishai's realistic, well-observed illustrations nicely reflect the story's wholesome good humor. A judiciously understated plea for this useful, misunderstood creature. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.