Fireflies at Midnight

Title: Fireflies at Midnight
Genre: Poetry
Author: Marilyn Singer
Major Awards: School Library Journal's Best Books 0f 2003
Age Group: 5th-8th grade

Fireflies at Midnight is a compilation of poems about different animals and insects. There is a section of poems for Dawn, Early Morning, Noon, Early, Mid, and Late Afternoon, Dusk, Dark, Evening, Midnight, and Nighttime. For each section, there is a poem about an animal who is awake during that time period. The poems start at Dawn, and there is a poem called "Robin." Here, a robin is waking up for the day and assessing what she needs to do for the day. When Noon rolls around, there is a poem titled "Horse." Here, a horse is struggling to make it through the June and July heat and wants to stop wearing a saddle. When it gets to the Dark section, there is a poem titled "Bat." Here, a bat is flying above a house and a tree and describing what he encounters when flying. When it gets to be Nighttime, there is a poem titled "Red Fox." Here, a group of foxes are hunting for prey and wondering why people think that mocking a fox is right- because they will eat whoever mocks them. 

Although I really enjoyed the illustrations, I would not use this book in my classroom. The poems are incredibly difficult to understand and there are many words in them that I have never even heard of before. Even though I am a college student, there were many poems in this book that I read over and over again, and never fully comprehended the meaning of them. 

I would recommend this book for fifth through eighth grade. Even then, I think that many students might be confused by these poems, though. The poems do not have much structure, and do not make much sense in my opinion. I think that if students are very intellectual and can think on a higher level, they might enjoy these poems. 

In my classroom, I could re-create this story by having students choose a topic (Dawn, Early Morning, Noon, etc.) out of a hat and they would have to choose an animal for that time of the day and write a poem about it. Although this particular story might be difficult for them, they could demonstrate their knowledge of poetry structure by doing a fun activity that stems from a poem they read.