A Sleepless Night
by Micaela Chirif; illus. by Joaquín Camp; trans. from Spanish by Jordan Landsman
Primary    Transit    48 pp.
9/24    9798893389050    $19.95

In this vibrant and absurdist Argentinian import, young Elisa cries so loudly that her narrator sibling says she sounds “like a fire truck instead of a baby,” and all the neighbors in their apartment building are disrupted. As her wails grow throughout the night, the adults around her offer increasingly creative attempts at soothing (piggyback rides, flowers, stories, etc.) until the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur into whimsical chaos: e.g., a storybook character cries with her; Elisa is featured on a jumbo screen in a bustling city “on the other side of the planet.” When her grandmother moves Elisa’s legs “as if she were riding a bicycle in the air,” the baby finally gets relief; her humongous fart blasts the apartment complex up like a rocketship and then back to Earth, where it lands upside-down. Relieved, Elisa (and everyone else) finally gets some sleep. The narrator remains unseen until the story’s final pages, where they are depicted with the same bizarre playfulness, shown along with the rest of the cast dozing atop frozen desserts. The rich, humorous text is full of similes, and the illustrations appear to be rendered with markers, offering a layered and textured style. Blue nighttime hues contrast with brighter colors, centering action while exaggerated forms deepen the fantastical elements. Dazzling and dreamy.

From the ">November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.