Restless children will doze easier after ‘Noises at Night’

“Noises at Night,” a picture book by Beth Raisner Glass and Susan Lubner, illustrated by Bruce Whatley, may very well become required reading for sleep-challenged children and their parents.

Glass and Lubner use the fears that children often take to bed with them and change those fears to tales of adventure. The story is told by the child himself – a young boy whose ping-pong-ball-sized eyes remain wide open until the very last page. Youngsters fighting sleep will surely recognize the sounds our narrator hears, and will be captured not only by the story but by the rhyming couplets used to tell it.

“I like to pretend when I shut off the light,” he begins, “The noises turn into adventures at night.”

He hears a dripping faucet and imagines himself at the helm of a ship; the heater’s hisses become a snake that he’s charming. Road noise?

Vrroooomm, Vrroooomm roars a truck as it drives through the rain,

And now I’m a pilot preparing my plane.

I rev up the engine – we’re ready to fly,

We speed down the runway, then head for the sky.

Thunder holds no terrors – it’s a drum roll at a circus, he’s a trapeze artist; a falling branch is the crack of his bat and he’s No. 1! Finally, every threat spun into gold by the power of his imagination, he closes his eyes and “can’t hear a peep, / The sound of the quiet now puts [him] to sleep.”

This, the first book from Beth Raisner Glass and Susan Lubner, will leave parents eagerly awaiting the next.

In the meantime, both parents and children can meet Susan Lubner this weekend in Bangor – the town where she grew up. Daughter of the late Herbert Emple and his wife, Barbara, she graduated from Bangor High School in 1983; her mother and stepfather, Mel Braverman, still live in Lubner’s hometown.

As with every good picture book, the “Noises at Night” illustrations provide as much interest and delight as the story. Whatley’s are lively and bold; he uses great sweeps of the brush, and children will very likely be caught up in the animation of the images.

Whately states in an artist’s note at the end of the book that he likes to create “different layers … that appeal to kids one minute and parents the next,” that in fact enlarge the story. Whatley gives our intrepid adventurer a dog, for example, not mentioned by Glass and Lubner, and a teddy bear.

I would wish for even more detail; the simplicity of the illustrations may narrow possibilities for children to extend the narrative. Very young children, before they’re engaged by story, love to find details in illustrations – and Whatley’s work won’t give them an awful lot to find.

That’s a small quibble, however, with a book that may become a bedtime favorite for both parents and children.

Lubner’s second picture book, this one written without Beth Raisner Glass, is due out next fall, and has the intriguing title of “Ruthie Bon Bair: Do Not Go to Bed Alone with Wringing Wet Hair”; those who don’t want to wait until fall can pick up Spider Magazine in June to read her “Not So Ordinary Cows.”

“Noises at Night” has given me yet one more reason to be sorry that my twin 2-year-old grandsons live in Hong Kong; even though I won’t be able to read it to them in person, however, I’m sending along a copy so that my son and daughter-in-law can have the pleasure. And maybe even a better night’s sleep.

Susan Lubner will read from “Noises at Night” (Abrams for Young Readers, $15.95) at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 30, at the Bangor Public Library and at 4 p.m. the same day at The Briar Patch bookstore, 27 Central St., Bangor. She’ll read again from her book at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 1. For information, call 941-0255.