Midnight Motorbike
Written by Maureen Shay Tajsar and Illustrated by Ishita Jain
★ "The dreamlike visuals complement the lyrical text, engaging readers’ senses and showcasing the gentle, loving relationship between mother and child. Bold pinks, yellows, and blues shine, contrasting beautifully with the characters’ dark skin tones and the backdrop of deep night. Verdant forests, bright city nights, and swirling stars evoke motion as these seemingly ordinary spaces take on wondrous qualities by night. In an author's note, Tajsar mentions drawing inspiration from rides with her own mother in Tamil Nadu. A visual feast sure to have readers finding magic in the mundane."
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"“On a night too hot to sleep,” a child narrator and their Amma ride on a motorcycle “through villages,” amid lush greenery, and “between silent temples” toward the Bay of Bengal. Extended first-person lines from Shay Tajsar, making her debut, lean into lyricism over precision (“I know candlelight shadows on a wall look like peacocks”). Thickly rendered mixed-media illustrations from Jain, meanwhile, strikingly capture the dreamlike state of the late-night ride. Includes an author’s note, which discusses the creator’s visits to South India, and an illustrator’s note."
—Publishers Weekly
"[L]ush, atmospheric. . . . Their ride is a luxuriant lullaby, a time of togetherness as well as a feast for the eyes and the senses. . . . Tajsar’s prose provides a sensory travelogue. . . . Ishita Jain’s art vividly evokes the night sky with a deep blue background, against which big splashes of vivid color pop. . . . [A] fascinating tour of a South Indian night. While this mother-daughter adventure ignites the senses, as the narrator is finally lulled to sleep by the end, it also becomes a poignant salute to the love between parent and child. Midnight Motorbike is an exciting and ultimately comforting ode to adventure, observation and love."
—BookPage
"Tajsar’s lyrical text, coupled with Jain’s jewel-toned illustrations in gouache, crayons, and pencil . . . weave an immersive, sensory-rich, and timelessly magical connection among mother and child, other people, and the larger world."
—The Horn Book
"[T]he combination of poetic text and lush mixed-media illustrations draw the eye into this world. An explosion of colors, rich with texture, and a wide palette of materials creates complex scenery that provides a multilayered context for this story of connection. A loving tribute to mother/daughter relationships, as well as the Indian subcontinent, consider this story as an introduction to South Asian culture or as a centerpiece to thoughtful story hours. Vibrant illustrations and poetic text make this story of family relationships well-suited for one-on-one reads or for group settings with room for Q&As."
—School Library Journal