
The Midnight Fair
Gideon Sterer, Author
Mariachiara Di Giorgio, Illustrator
Candlewick, Fiction, Feb. 2, 2021
Suitable for ages: 3-7
Themes: Animals, Fairgrounds, Fantasy, Magic, Bedtime dreams, Wordless
Publisher’s Synopsis:
As darkness falls on the fairgrounds, the animals venture out of the woods for one magical, memorable night! An exhilarating wordless picture book.
Far from the city, but not quite the countryside, lies a fairground. When night comes and the fair is empty, something unexpected happens. Wild animals emerge from the forest, a brave raccoon pulls a lever, and the roller coasters and rides explode back into bright, neon life. It’s time for the woodland creatures to head to the fair!
In a gorgeous wordless picture book, author Gideon Sterer and illustrator Mariachiara Di Giorgio offer an exuberant take on what animals are up to when humans are asleep. Suffused with color and light, the panel illustrations celebrate the inherent humor and joy in deer flying by on chair-swings, a bear winning a stuffed bear, three weasels carrying a soft pretzel, and a badger driving a bumper car. With thrills both spectacular and subtle, Midnight Fair will have readers punching their tickets again and again to revel in this fantastic nocturnal world.
What to love about this book:
Gideon Sterer’s wordless picture book is magical and entertaining. It encourages children to use their BIG imaginations to tell the story in their own words! And each story will be very different because there is so much lively and subtle detail to explore. Each page reveals surprise after surprise, with a very memorable moment at the end.
Mariachiara Di Giorgio’s whimsical watercolor, gouache and colored pencil illustrations celebrate the wild animal’s night of magic, their lively and playful adventure, and the beautiful natural world they call home. This story is perfect for bedtime dreaming! It also is a nod that summer is here and it’s time to go to the fair!
Resources: Take your kids to a local summer fair. The entire book is a resource that will inspire creativity for kids. Provide crayons and let them draw their favorite scene. They may want to draw their favorite animal doing a different task at the fair, like making cotton candy or taking tickets. Maybe they want to draw their own pet at the fair. After all, it is their story to imagine what is happening in the story.
Gideon Sterer is the author of many books for children. He grew up in the woods of upstate New York, where his parents owned a small zoo. After hours, he would often run around and let the animals out of their cages. Who knows what sort of might mischief they got up to? Gideon Sterer lives in Brooklyn.
How gorgeous, and how wonderful that’s is a wordless picture book – so great for encouraging imaginations and language development.
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Wish, I’d thought to include language development. It is a beautiful book and kids will love it!
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I’m certain of that too.
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Such a gorgeous cover! And I love that it’s wordless, with kids empowered to add to the story.
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The cover is gorgeous, but you should see the other illustrations. They pull kids right into the story.
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Another vote here for the engaging cover. Don’t remember ever looking through a wordless picture book. Sounds like time well spent and I will be alerting friends and relatives with kids this age to track down a copy.
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I have come to really appreciate wordless picture books because they really encourage children to tell the story as they see it. And it will probably change each time they read the book because they will see things they didn’t before.
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Wow! This is so magical! I love that it’s wordless, so kids can make up the story, changing it every time they read it if they’re so inclined. I’ll be adding this to my TBR list for sure. Candlewick publishes such beautiful books!
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Yes, I’ve been excited to share this gem! It really encourages kids to imagine.
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This looks whimsically wonderful; wordless books used to frustrate me, but now they make me SO happy! Such a gem as we carousel our way into summer.
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Love your play on words. This is my third wordless PB to review and I see how much they encourage kids to use their imaginations and tell their version of what they see.
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This looks amazing, Pat! Just gorgeous! I love that encourages kids to use their own imaginations. It’s fun to see wordless picture books (said the person who writes words 😊) but just the pictures can be so magical!
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This is a book you’d really enjoy, Susanna! Wordless PBs have grown on me and I see how important they are for children to use their imaginations!
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How thoroughly enchanting! I have to look for this one.
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You would love the artwork, Teresa! Gorgeous book!
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I loved reading the author’s backstory and how that obviously inspired much of this charming picture book!
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Yes, I loved his backstory too. It’s taken me a while to really appreciate wordless PBs, but I see the value in them for children.
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Yes, his backstory is very interesting. Just loved this book. Full of nature and a of magic!
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