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Marc Just Couldn't Sleep
by Gabriela Keselman, illustrated by Noemi Villamuza
Kane/Miller (August 2004)
ISBN-10: 1929132689, ISBN-13: 978-1929132683
My rating: 
Shortly afterwards Marc called out once more.
"What if the moon melts, and the world goes dark?" he asked.
"Don't worry honey," his mom answered, "I'll fix that, and soon you'll fall fast asleep."
She gave him a pair of glasses with glow in the dark lenses and sent a letter to the moon. The letter said, "Moon, don't even think about doing anything silly like melting or something."
And then she left.
--Marc Just Couldn't Sleep, by Gabriela Keselman, illustrated by Noemi Villamuza, p. 10.
Marc can't sleep. He's scared, and he worries about big things and small things. Each time he tells his mother a worry, she comes up with imaginative, playful ways to try to soothe him and get him to sleep. But even after she's found a solution for each of his worries, he's still scared. Exasperated, his mother comes in, takes away all the things she gave him as solutions, and sits with him, touching his hair, and encourages him to tell her all his fears--but by then, Marc is tired enough that he falls asleep. Imagination can help--but sometimes we just need physical comfort and having someone sit with us and listen, to go to sleep. This is a sweet, imaginative bedtime story.
Keselman makes it easy to identify with Marc--we hear immediately that he's scared. Anyone who worries a lot, or who has a strong imagination, will understand Marc's worrying and fear all the more. Some of Marc's worries are universal--afraid of falling out of bed--and some are much more specific and imaginative--such as being afraid a giant mosquito will fly in and bite him. This movement between common fears and outrageous, imaginative ones helps bring variation, makes the fears entertaining, and may help some readers know that they are not alone in their worries and fears.
Read the whole review here!
Go To Bed, Monster!
by Natasha Wing, illustrated by Sylvie Kantorovitz
Harcourt (October 2007)
ISBN: 0152057757, ISBN-13: 9780152057756
My rating:
One night, Lucy tossed and turned.
She could not, would not, did not want to go to bed.
"I want to draw," she said.
Lucy dumped out her crayons.
She drew an oval body. A square head. Rectangle legs. And circle eyes.
When she added triangles, the shapes turned into a . . .
MONSTER!
Roar! said Monster.
"You don't scare me," said Lucy. "Let's play!"
Lucy and Monster built castles.
They flew airplanes. They marched in a parade.
--Go To Bed, Monster! by Natasha Wing, illustrated by Sylvie Kantorovitz, p. 2-8.
Lucy doesn't want to go to sleep--she wants to draw. Her drawing turns into a monster, and the monster comes alive. Monster wants to play and play, so much so that Lucy is soon tired out--but Monster is not. Lucy tries various ways to get Monster to go to sleep, but Monster won't sleep, and keeps wanting things which Lucy draws for him--until finally Lucy comes up with a solution that helps put them both to sleep--a bedtime story.
Wing (The Night Before Kindergraten, The Night Before First Grade) cleverly turns the usual bedtime scene around, so that it is Lucy, the child, who has to cajole and soothe her Monster to bed (not the child's parents cajoling or soothing her to bed). This reversal is funny. Go To Bed, Monster! is also about the power of imagination, and the ways imagination can entertain, soothe, and find solutions to problems. It's Lucy's imagination and creativity that brings Monster alive, and allows them to use everything she creates. The fantasy aspect of drawings coming alive or being able to be used is highly enjoyable--similar to Harold and the Purple Crayon--and will spark reader imagination and encourage creativity and art. This is a lovely, sweet bedtime story that has humor and a gentle playfulness.
Read the whole review here!
Jitterbug Jam: A Monster Tale
by Barbara Jean Hicks, illustrated by Alexis Deacon
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (March 2005)
ISBN-10: 0374336857, ISBN-13: 9780374336851
My rating:
Nobody believes me,
and my brother, Buster, says I'm a fraidy-cat,
but I'm not fooling you:
there's a boy
who hides in my big old monster closet
all night long
and then sneaks under my bed in the morning
on purpose
to scare me.
--Jitterbug Jam by Barbara Jean Hicks, illustrated by Alexis Deacon, p. 1.
In this delightful reversal of traditional monster-under-the-bed stories, Bobo is a young monster who is afraid there's a boy under his bed. He doesn't want to go to bed, and hides until Boo-Dad, his grandfather, comes to visit. His grandfather tells him a story of once meeting a girl, and this helps give him the courage to face his fears--especially when he actually meets a boy under his bed. In the end, Bobo and the boy start a friendship. This is a soothing, imaginative story about facing your fears, finding courage and reassurance, and discovering that someone you might fear may not actually be very different than yourself.
Read the whole review here!
Lights Out
by Arthur Geisert
Walter Lorraine Books/Houghton Mifflin (September 2005)
ISBN-10: 0618478922, ISBN-13: 978-0618478927
My rating:
My parents make me turn off the light at eight. They know I'm afraid to go to sleep unless the light is on. They said, "If you can figure something out--go ahead." So I did.
--Lights Out, by Arthur Geisert, p. 1.
In this funny and endearing book, a young pig who's afraid to go to sleep in the dark on creates an ingenious invention to allow himself time to fall asleep before the light goes out, while still doing as his parents ask.
Lights Out is an almost wordless book; the text appears only on the first page, setting up the story, and then the illustrations take it from there. There are only four brief sentences, but they work perfectly to tell the reader the pig's problem and to let the reader know that the piglet created a solution. It's a great set up—telling readers why something happened (the piglet created the contraption) and piquing curiosity (What exactly did the piglet do to solve his problem?) until, by the end of the illustrations, the reader's got the answer. . . .
Read the whole review here!
Goodnight, Sweet Pig
by Linda Bailey, illustrated by Josée Masse
Kids Can Press (February 2007)
ISBN-10: 155337844X, eISBN-13: 978-1553378440
My rating:
To sleep, or not to sleep? That is the question.
1 Pig number one was trying to sleep,
plumping her pillows and counting sheep.
2 But pig number two liked to read with a light
and eat buttered toast all through the night.
3 Pig number three liked to watch TV
and paint her trotters and drink iced tea
--Goodnight, Sweet Pig, by Linda Bailey, illustrated by Josée Masse, p. 1-3.
Goodnight, Sweet Pig is a comforting, sweet bedtime story that cleverly incorporates counting into the tale, without seeming to teach counting. A little pig is trying to get to sleep, when in walks another pig who wants to read with the light on and eat buttered toast. Then another pig walks into the bedroom—this one wanting to watch TV, paint her trotters and drink iced tea. And on and on it goes, all the way up to ten—until the little pig bursts into tears and asks them to let her sleep. And then the pigs, ten downwards, each leave or do something to help the little pig sleep.
Bailey's rhyming text is pleasing to the ear—the lively rhymes work well, they're fun, imaginative, and quirky, and they tell a brief but entertaining story while counting up to ten and back down again. . . .
Read the whole review here!
The Kiss That Missed
by David Melling
Barron's Educational Series (January 2007)
ISBN-10: 0764136240, ISBN-13: 978-0764136245
My rating:
Once upon a Tuesday the King was in a hurry as usual. "Goodnight," he said and blew his son a Royal Kiss.
It missed.
The young prince watched it rattle around the room, then bounce out of the window and into the night.
The prince told the Queen.
The Queen told the King, and the King had a quick word with his loyal Knight.
"Follow that Kiss!" he squawked.
--The Kiss That Missed, by David Melling, p. 1-5.
Melling (The Scallywags; The Ghost Library) has created a fun, heart-warming book about taking the time to say goodnight to the people you love, and being truly present with them. In the book, a busy king blows his son a kiss, but the kiss misses, flying out the window into the night. When his son complains, the king instructs his knight to get the kiss back. The knight follows the kiss where all sorts of wild creatures are waiting—and then the kiss says good-night to them all, and they all settle down to sleep. But the kiss doesn't stop there. The knight follows it to a hungry dragon. But before the dragon can do anything, the kiss settles down on the dragon's nose, transforming the dragon into a friendly, kissing creature. The knight takes the kiss back to the castle, where the king promises not to be in such a hurry, and he slowly reads everyone a bedtime story.
Melling's beautifully written text pulls readers quickly through the story. . . .
Read the whole review here!
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