Night Job

With lyrical narration and elegant, evocative artwork, Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse and illustrator G. Brian Karas share the nighttime experience of a father and child.

When the sun sets, Dad's job as a school custodian is just beginning. What is it like to work on a Friday night while the rest of the city is asleep? There's the smell of lilacs in the night air, the dusky highway in the moonlight, and glimpses of shy nighttime animals to make the dark magical. Shooting baskets in the half-lit gym, sweeping the stage with the game on the radio, and reading out loud to his father in the library all help the boy's time pass quickly. But what makes the night really special is being with Dad. Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse's quietly powerful story of a boy and his father is tenderly brought to life by G. Brian Karas in this luminous tribute to an enduring, everyday sort of love.

Karen Hesse is the author of numerous books for young people, including Out of the Dust, winner of a Newbery Medal and a Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction; The Cats in Krasinski Square; and Letters from Rifka. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellows Grant in 2002, Karen Hesse lives in Vermont.

G. Brian Karas has illustrated more than ninety children’s books, including two by Megan McDonald about Ant and Honey Bee; Tap Tap Boom Boom by Elizabeth Bluemle; and Are You Going to Be Good? by Cari Best, a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year. G. Brian Karas lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.