Fireflies at Midnight

1. Bibliography

Singer, Marilyn. 2001. Fireflies at Midnight. Pictures by Ken Robbins. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0689824920

2. Plot Summary

            Fireflies at Midnight uses different perspectives from various animals to discover the time throughout the day. Cheerful robin starts us off with dawn and the poems continue trough the lazy horse at noon, the hunting fox at nighttime, and ends with the mole bedding down at the dawn that has once again risen.

3. Critical Analysis

            Fireflies at Midnight is an individual poet compilation by Marilyn Singer with pictures by Ken Robbins. The book focuses on the passage of time through the different perspectives of animals. Singer uses both rhyming and non-rhyming poems throughout the book. She also uses various rhythms which she bases on the animals themselves. An example of this is in her poem Frog

            “baron I’m the baron

            I’m the duke

            I’m the king

                   of this piece of the pond

            when it’s muggy

            when it’s buggy

                    in the moonlight

            hear me sing

            baron I’m the baron

            I’m the duke

            I’m the king”

Through the beat of this poem and the word choice, the reader is able to get a sense of the character of the frog. Another poem which holds a heavy rhythm, but no rhyming is Spider:

            “Web is the work

                    is the home

                    is the trap

                      is the hub

                    is the map

                      is the night

                      is the day

                      is the hour

                      is the power

                      is the pattern

             is the way”

In this poem the simplistic style allows for the focus to remain on the language used. A spider is typically only seen on his/her home which is described through the words work, trap, hub, map, power, and pattern. Time passage is presented through the usage of night, day, and hour, and connects to the theme of the overall book. All of the poems help create a dream type world by going into the animals’ world and trying to discover what they would be thinking. Ken Robbins treated photographs help to present this dreamlike world by taking real animals and adjusting them to look similar to illustrations. Each picture is an up close photo of the perspective of the animal presented. This allows for readers to also see what the animal looks like if it is an unfamiliar animal, and it also is used to further enhance the meaning of the poem. An example of the poem enhancing the meaning is Rabbit where the rabbit is trying to hide at dusk time so nothing will chase him. The picture paired with the poem is in various hues of golden yellow and tan. The rabbit is pictured behind tall grass, and just the outline of the rabbit is visible. This book is a great way to get students interested in poems presented from animal perspectives and the passage of time. Singer uses both rhythm and rhyming in several of the poems, along with free verse, so various poem styles are able to be studied in this book.  

4. Reviews

Kirkus Review; “Singer once again captures the intrinsic character of each animal's nature or movement through innovative poetic devices: swooping rhymes describing the playful otter, a rollicking rhythm for a poem about a horse, and a strong two-beat meter for a monarch butterfly that reflects the beating pattern of its wings. She divides the 14 poems evenly between rhyming and non-rhyming works, and all of them employ unusual rhyme schemes or structures. The innovative poetry is well complemented with unusual photographic illustrations that sometimes look like photographic collages and other times like watercolors or oil paintings. The volume's thoughtful design includes firefly-spangled endpapers and a subtle reminder at the top of each poem delineating the time of day. The midnight blue cover with glowing fireflies hints at the magical nature of what lies inside: luminous poems that will stand the test of time.”

From School Library Journal; “Brief poetic musings set throughout the course of a day capture the true nature of a variety of everyday creatures. The vividly realized photo treatments are at once hyperrealistic and dreamlike, reinforcing the feeling of moments frozen in time.”

5. Connections

* Watch how an animal acts during a time of day and write a poem using their voice.

*Using puppets or mask have a different person read each poem as the animal.

* What time of day do you like best?

* Similar books:

            Lion, David C. A Home in the Swamp. ISBN 0516253492

            Jenkins, Steve. Actual Size. ISBN 0618375945

            Lewin, Ted. Nilo and the Tortoise. ISBN 0590960040