SARAH'S SLEEPOVER

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)