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Summary
Summary
One hot summer night in the city, all the power goes out. The TV shuts off and a boy wails, "Mommm!" His sister can no longer use the phone, Mom can't work on her computer, and Dad can't finish cooking dinner. What's a family to do? When they go up to the roof to escape the heat, they find the lights--in stars that can be seen for a change--and so many neighbors it's like a block party in the sky! On the street below, people are having just as much fun--talking, rollerblading, and eating ice cream before it melts. The boy and his family enjoy being not so busy for once. They even have time to play a board game together. When the electricity is restored, everything can go back to normal . . . but not everyone likes normal. The boy switches off the lights, and out comes the board game again. Using a combination of panels and full bleed illustrations that move from color to black-and-white and back to color, John Rocco shows that if we are willing to put our cares aside for a while, there is party potential in a summer blackout.
Author Notes
John Rocco grew up Barrington, Rhode Island. He studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design and School of Visual Arts in New York City.
John collaborated with actor/comedian Whoopi Goldberg on the picture book Alice. Shortly after the project was finished he moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a creative director.
At Walt Disney Imagineering John designed many attractions at Disney's Epcot, including the Post-Shows for Spaceship Earth and Mission Space. He also served as the art director for DisneyQuest, an interactive theme park in Downtown Disney. At Dreamworks, John was the pre-production art director for animated film Shrek.
In 2005 John shifted his focus to writing and illustrating children's books and created Wolf! Wolf! which netted him the Borders Original Voices Award for best picture book. His next book was Moonpowder (May 2008) followed by Fu Finds the Way (Oct 2009).
John continues to collaborate with authors and has illustrated Boy, Were We Wrong About the Solar System (Sep 2008) for Kathleen V. Kudlinski and The Lightening Thief (Dec 2009) for Rick Riodan. He also illustrates all the covers for Rick Riordan's bestselling YA series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
In 2012, his title Blackout was a Caldecott Honor recipient and made the ALA Notable Children's Books list.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (7)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-Where were you when the lights went out on August 14, 2003? John Rocco's Caldecott Honor book (Hyperion, 2011) presents a worthy portrayal of that iconic night in New York City. It's a hot, sticky summer evening, filled with jazzy clarinet riffs and city sounds of horns and garbage trucks. "And then, the lights.went.out. All of them!" Suddenly, the busy city is dark and eerily still. Folks get out their flashlights and candles, slowly rediscover their families and their town, and have the time to notice one another. People gather on rooftops and streets, enjoying impromptu barbecues, free gelato, music, and the starlight above. Transformed, the entire city becomes one big block party. Soup2Nuts has animated the book with gleeful shadow puppetry and sweet synchronicity. Narrator Stanley Tucci gets the pauses just right, and shows his range with whispery words and raucous shouts. Best of all is David Mansfield's original bossa nova background music, in Carlos Santana style, that catches the mood with infectious rhythms. Pre- and post-viewing activities are provided in liner notes, including excellent recommendations to compare and contrast nonfiction archival articles from a decade ago with this fictional account. The DVD can also serve as an ideal writing prompt, using "What if." scenarios suggested in the outstanding author interview. Rocco, a talented illustrator, has created an inspirational glimpse of a community coming together in a crisis.-Lonna Pierce, MacArthur and Thomas Jefferson Elementary Schools, Binghamton, NY (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-On a summer night in the city, the youngest member of a family finds that everyone is too busy to play with him. But when the lights go out, and everything shuts down, suddenly there's time for games and impromptu street and rooftop parties. Luminous, fluid artwork, filled with visual gags that extend the charming story, glows with warmth and humor. (July) (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Rocco's sublime account of a city blackout reveals a bittersweet truth: it sometimes takes a crisis to bring a family together. In a series of graphic novel-style panels, a small child tries to convince family members to play a board game one hot summer night, but they're all too busy. When the lights go out, though, the neighborhood comes alive and the whole family drifts up to the roof to look at the stars: "It was a block party in the sky." Rocco (Fu Finds the Way) gets everything right: the father's pained, sheepish smile when he says he has no time to play; the velvety dark and glowing candlelight of the blackout (as well as the sense of magic that can accompany one); and the final solution to the problem of a too-busy family (a private blackout, courtesy of a light switch). The high-energy visuals that characterize Rocco's other work get dialed back a little. In the most poignant spread, the family sits on the stoop, eating ice cream: "And no one was busy at all." It's a rare event these days. Ages 4-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
One summer night, when there's a blackout in the city, a family abandons its electrical gadgets and spends time together, venturing outside to join a spontaneous neighborhood party. After the electricity comes back on, everyone decides to ignore it and play a board game instead. The comic strip format enhances the spare text, while the illustrations are dramatically illuminated by candles and flashlights. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
"It started out as a normal summer night"until the lights go out, citywide.When it gets "too hot and sticky" inside their apartment (no fans or AC tonight), one busy family (mom, dad, two girls and a black cat) heads to the rooftop of their building, where they find light via stars and a block party "in the sky." Other parties are happening down on the street, too. When the lights come back on, everything returns to normal, except for this family, which continues to enjoy the dark. The plot line, conveyed with just a few sentences, is simple enough, but the dramatic illustrations illuminate the story. Beginning with the intriguing coverthe silhouetted family on their rooftop under a vast, dark-blue sky dotted with Starry Nighttype swirls, black is used as both a backdrop and a highlighter. Page composition effectively intermingles boxed pages and panels with double-page spreads, generating action. Brilliantly designed, with comic bits such as a portrait of Edison on a wall and the cat running from a hand shadow of a dog.Not all young readers will have experienced a blackout, but this engaging snapshot could easily have them wishing for one. (Picture book. 5-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
It's a scenario many kids are probably all too familiar with: a young boy wants to play, but older sis is gabbing on the phone, Mom is busy on the computer, and Dad is making dinner. When the power goes out, however, the family comes together to make shadow puppets on the wall, join the neighbors on the roof to admire the stars, and even head out front to the most idyllic city street you'll ever see. All good things come to an end, though. The power comes back on, and everyone immediately slips back into walled-off family units though the walls are a bit weaker now. Compositionally, this picture book bears a strong resemblance to Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen (1970), breaking some of the pages into comics-style panels and running a boxed narrative up top. Rocco's lustrous, animation-quality artwork somehow manages to get richer the darker it gets, and features one of the silkiest skies sinc. Van Gogh's Starry Night. A versatile reminder to take a break and invest in quality together time once in a while.--Chipman, Ia. Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IF you believe that books set in your neighborhood will somehow help your child love to read, then you would be lucky these days to be a parent in Brooklyn. Books for children by Brooklyn authors now match the similarly numberless books by Brooklyn-based authors for grown-ups. And into this crowded field comes John Rocco's "Blackout," apparently set in Dumbo or another nearby locale that includes the Brooklyn Bridge in its deep space. "Blackout," as the title suggests, concerns a young boy whose classically nuclear family is busy with other stuff, at least until the sudden failure of the electrical grid. Remember: the quintessential New York City blackout of 1977 featured a lot of looting and disorderly conduct. Rocco's blackout seems to concern a lightly fictionalized version of the blackout of 2003. In this friendlier crisis, much of New York City (and, presumably, the rest of the Northeast) spread into the streets to relax, and was rewarded by restaurants intent on giving away what might otherwise go bad. The 2003 blackout started at 4:11 in the afternoon, which would make impossible the beautiful and nearly monochromatic tonalities of Rocco's nighttime illustrations (rarely has a children's book featured so much unalloyed navy and black). Into the dramatic darkness, the unnamed protagonist and his family head up to the roof, where for once the stars are visible. "Blackout" is about the restoration of a sense of community, not only within a family but in the larger context of a neighborhood. Once power is restored, our protagonist lobbies to turn off the lights electively, in order to preserve and continue with the experience of being together. Rocco's parable of life off the grid is warm and sweet; my own daughter liked it a great deal despite being a little scared of the dark. My one minor criticism is that the airbrushed, stylish pages resemble a graphic novel more than a conventional picture book. Graphic novel visual syntax - the panels, the labels, the bubbles of text - assumes a visual fluency not all children will have. But this is a quibble. An argument for turning off devices and spending more time with people (even if by candlelight), and for making an effort to gaze at a clearer night sky are fine suggestions, which kids will greet with their elastic capacity for wonder. Even if they're Brooklyn kids, used to thinking that all the books in the world are about their home. Rick Moody's most recent novel is "The Four Fingers of Death."