This book is adorable! The illustrations are fun and colorful. And the story is delightful! The little girl is so excited about her upcoming special night. Her daddy even prepares a special breakfast for her and her siblings on this special day. She rides in the fanciest car she has ever seen. There are lots of photographers. But the best part of the night was her time spent with her mother.

Perfect for children ages 4-8. ( )

This adorable story tells what I imagine the young author felt like during her first trip to the Oscars, which I can only imagine can be both completely thrilling while completely intimidating. The little girl experiences some hiccups and literal stumbles at the fancy affair, but quickly thinks of her family and how much their love and support mean to her and easily dusts herself off with their support. The pictures are beautiful and colorful and really express the glitz and glamour of the Hollywood shin-dig, and the writing is so descriptive that you can imagine you are there with the little girl. ( )

A Night Out with Mama is a book about Quvenzhané Wallis going to an award show. She is an amazing young actress. She was in the new "Annie" movie and a few other popular movies. This book tells about the day she got ready to go to an award show. She wakes up her family and is really excited about this big day. She wears her new shoes the whole day and taps all around the house. She gets her hair done and gets in her new blue dress. Even though her brother teases her she doesn't let that ruin her night. Her mom and her ride in a fancy limo to the awards. They get there and when she gets out she fell right onto the floor. She thinks about her family, pancakes, and her Dad. She gets up and keeps it moving. Even though she didn't win anything, she still had a good time. ( )

Actress Quvenzhané Wallis makes her picture-book debut in A Night Out with Mama, which presents the autobiographically-inspired story of her experiences at a red carpet event (most likely the Academy Awards). Excited at the prospect of a night out, and pleased with her beautiful blue dress and shoes, the heroine has an initial misstep, tripping and falling in front of the cameras, but thinking about her loving family, she brushes it off and has a wonderful night anyway...

I'm not generally a fan of celebrity-authored children's books, nor of the craze for books by very young authors (Wallis is currently fourteen), as I often find that publishers rely in these cases on the fame or extreme youth of their authors as a selling point, rather than insisting on the production of a high quality text. There are exceptions, of course (Julie Andrews and Julianne Moore come to mind in this respect), but sadly this isn't one of them. Although sweet, the narrative here is also bland and rather uninteresting, and feels like nothing so much as its author's celebration of her own celebrity. I was interested to see Vanessa Brantley-Newton's artwork, after the debacle involving her recent A Birthday Cake for George Washington, and thought the visuals here were (again) sweet, although not terribly compelling. Tastes vary, needless to say, so youngsters with an interest in show business, or a taste for fancy dress might still enjoy this one, but for me it was more of a miss than a hit. ( )