Sleepytime Me

September 1, 2014

PreS-Gr 1-This book is perfect for easing children into bed. Beginning with sunset and a young girl chasing fireflies with her grandmother, lyrically simple four-line stanzas bring readers from the field at dusk with "darkness glowing" to the farm where "piglets whuffle" to the town where "headlights shimmer" and to the night of a young boy's room as his mother tucks him into bed. The refrain "Yawn around, yawn around, sleepytime sky" repeats through each location, ending with "Yawn around, yawn around, sleepytime me./Night-night. Sleep tight. Sleep tight." The illustrations work seamlessly with the text, with blues and greens depicting the cool country night and warm yellows and golds in the lights of the town and home. Farm toys, cars, and trucks wait on the boy's star-printed rug for him to play again tomorrow. As the verse and artwork move from the vast sky to a small cozy bed, children will surely yawn and snuggle (and perhaps whuffle) as they drift off to sleep. This book is destined to be a much-requested, oft-repeated selection.-Martha Link Yesowitch, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, NC

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2014
As daylight fades and the moon rises, animals settle in for the evening, streetlights come on, cars head home, and nighttime rituals are set into motion. Cozy, muted digitally rendered illustrations in rich purples and blues but for the glow of fireflies, lanterns, and night-lights are visually lulling; the spare rhyming text, occasionally faltering in meter, is soothing but secondary.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)