Sarah's Sleepover

Sarah's sleepover party is not ruined when the power goes out, because Sarah is comfortable leading her friends confidently to safety through the darkness--she is blind, and her disability becomes her greatest strength. 10,000 first printing.

PreSchool-Grade 2-Sarah looks forward to the one weekend a month when her five cousins come to visit her at her family's farm. Though she is blind, she easily recognizes them as they arrive by their voices and their footsteps. When her parents announce that they'll be going out for awhile, the children delight in finally being old enough to be left alone. Their joy turns to unease when the lights go out and the other girls are unable to find their way around. Sarah saves the evening by remaining calm and capable of both navigating the house by feel and identifying various scary noises in the night. Impressionistic paintings depict the light and dark scenes equally well, and complement the straightforward text in showing Sarah as a normal child among her peers. This is a fine one-on-one read-aloud or a storytime possibility, marred only by the occasional difficulty of reading the text set on darker backgrounds.
Tana Elias, Meadowridge Branch Library, Madison, WI
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A nighttime blackout allows a gathering of cousins to share for a brief spell in the blindness of a young girl. Sarah looks forward to sleepover weekend when all her female relatives come for the night. On this particular occasion, after the parents have gone for a visit to a neighbor’s house, the lights go out. Sarah, who delivers a gentle reality check, noting that being in the dark is business as usual for her, quiets the shrieks and howls of the girls. She leads everyone downstairs to the telephone to call the neighbor (whose number she knows by heart), identifies various noises that go bump in the night—birders will be dismayed to see a great horned owl called a “barn owl”—and generally defuses all the terror. Indeed, when the parents return and change the blown fuse, the girls shout to turn off the lights; all that illumination is interfering with their fun. It is a provocative notion that Rodriguez tenders here: the qualitatively different emotional response one has to the dark if it is brought about by external forces or the closing of one’s eyes. Graham’s familiar lush artwork ably conveys the dark’s unctuous feel. (Picture book. 5-8) -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Nicely textured paintings with close attention to light and dark illustrate this earnest picture book. Sarah loves it when her five girl cousins, whom she recognizes by their voices and their footsteps, come to stay. They gather in Sarah's room and find games to play with her. While the parents are visiting a neighbor, the lights go out, and Sarah finds that her blindness helps her to recognize sounds that frighten her cousins and to lead the other girls downstairs so parents can be called. When the grownups return and fix the fuse, the girls decide to stay in the dark and tell stories and play guessing games. The jacket copy specifically mentions Sarah's blindness, but the text does not, which may leave some youngsters confused, and the words "The wind howled" are the only indicator of the storm that apparently knocked out the lights. The telling is somewhat awkward, but the heart of the story is in the right place. GraceAnne A. DeCandido