Lights Out

December 1, 2005
Gr 1-4 -A small pig creates an ingenious way to turn his light out at 8 p.m., as his parents require, but also to have the time he needs to settle into sleep before the room goes dark. His elaborate, Rube Goldbergian construction will have young readers poring over each page as a sequence of mechanical events unfolds. Only a few words introduce the story, but the visual narrative is lively and complex, showing the movement of each object in turn as the action runs up to the roof, down the walls, through the yard, into the basement, and so on. The porker sinks under the covers and his parents read calmly in the living room while the extraordinary machine does its work around the house. Readers will notice that the plans for this lights-out contraption are tacked up on the walls of the small pig's room, and that he's left some of his tools lying about -a wonderful and sweet attention to detail. Fans of roller-coaster construction, marble runs, and contraption-like machines will be immediately engaged, and the problem-solving humor is for everyone. The fine lines and small scale of Geisert's color art work perfectly to give an effect that is intimate, energetic, and delightful." -Kathie Meizner, Montgomery County Public Libraries, Chevy Chase, MD"

Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2005
K-Gr. 3. Like " Oink "(1991)" "and " Oink Oink "(1993)" , "Geisert's newest picture-book treasure is nearly wordless. The pithy opening paragraph poses a conundrum: lights-out is at eight for the young pig hero, but it's hard to fall asleep in a dark, scary room. The rest of the book consists of meticulous etchings of the time-delayed light-switch the youngster constructs, an outrageous contraption depicted at every stage from the initial input of energy (a tug on a string attached to scissors) to the final yank on the light cord. This focuses more on the Rube Goldberg scenario than on any genuine plotline, but really, the machine is story enough. Design-school students will want to study the techniques Geisert uses to represent kinetic processes, and children will delight in tracing each household object's purpose within the elaborate chain reaction. Like Geisert's etchings, an art form that calls forth inventors' blueprints and illustrations from Victorian-era catalogs, this book reminds us to delight in the messy, low-tech route from point A to point B. After all, in a society where computer chips and nanomachines do their work shrouded in techie mystery, perhaps mechanisms that allow force and motion to operate undisguised are the ones that seem most magical of all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2006
A pig needs the light on to fall asleep. His parents want his light off at eight. They tell him, "If you can figure something out--go ahead." And so he does. Triggering a series of inventive low-tech chain reactions results in a precise time-delayed light switch. The meticulously rendered illustrations carefully track this junior Rube Goldberg's work.

(Copyright 2006 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2005
A young pig needs the light on to fall asleep. His parents want his light turned off at eight but tell him, "If you can figure something out -- go ahead." After an understated introductory paragraph -- the book's only text -- we're ushered into familiar Geisert territory. A double-page spread sets the scene: at five to eight (according to an alarm clock), the pig lies in bed reading a book. Taped to the walls are intriguing design plans; hand tools, wood scraps, and other materials are strewn about. At eight on the dot, our hero pulls on a labeled "light cord," triggering a series of inventive low-tech chain reactions: a pendulum knocks over a line of dominoes, which pushes out a plug in the roof that sets a tricycle in motion, and on and on. The meticulously rendered illustrations carefully track the ingenious work of this junior Rube Goldberg, from the attic to the roof, from a downspout to the backyard, into the basement and back up the side of the house to the attic again. Geisert obviously shares his protagonist's passion for detail, and mechanically minded readers will revel in the minutiae. The time-delayed switch works with perfect precision: when the lamp finally turns off, at 8:25, our engineering genius is fast asleep. Sweet dreams.

(Copyright 2005 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)