Sign Off

Readers are probably familiar with stories about toys coming to life when night falls. In this wordless picture book, Savage (The Babysitter from Another Planet) imagines that the same is true for symbol signs, those bright orange and yellow street signs that feature black silhouetted figures. As the moon rises in the sky—the settings, bathed in lovely muted nighttime shades, are as stylized as the protagonists—the symbol characters leap off their respective signs and indulge in a little free play (a deer nibbles at low-hanging leaves; a construction worker builds a sand castle). Then all the symbols gather at the top of a hill, take the yellow circle down from the traffic light sign, and with a little collaborative engineering, launch it into the sky to bring on another day. Savage’s aesthetic and mastery of color are tailor-made for this inventive story, imbuing everyday objects with a vivid sense of character and narrative. Readers won’t be able to see signage the same way again. Ages up to 8. [em]Agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (May) [/em]