RACE YOU TO BED
by Bob Shea and illustrated by Bob Shea
A hyperactive, saucer-eyed rabbit challenges readers to a race to bed and runs into a gamut of unexpected animals, people and predicaments along the way. Quick, simple rhymes keep bunny bouncing from page to page, zipping past goats, bees and alligators and riding trains, jets and buses. Even a fall off a cliff, a yummy grilled-cheese sandwich and a run-in with a massive whale don’t slow him down. Every line in this frenetic picture book ends with “to bed,” setting an oddly energetic race pace for a bedtime story. Bright graphic illustrations stimulate eyes with interesting patterns and shapes, all communicating movement brilliantly but doing little to soothe or induce sleep. The digitally enhanced rabbit gives off an unnatural glow on his nonsensical journey through so many non sequiturs. When he finally reaches his bed, rabbit realizes readers were actually already in theirs all along and had won before the book even began—a clever ending that will elicit a smile or two. Next race? To sleep! (Picture book. 3-6)