A delightful bedtime book that encourages both imaginative play and restorative rest.
A nocturnal companion to Matheson’s Tap the Magic Tree (2013), this interactive picture book illuminates nighttime's wonders while shepherding readers toward sleep.
Dusk falls in waves of pink, blue and purple watercolor; lightning bugs glow, stars twinkle and fall, deer skedaddle, constellations shine—all with the touch of young readers’ fingers. Rhymes offer clear instructions: “Now let’s blow a quiet breeze. // Pat the deer / and say goodnight, please.” An implicit sense of power (and even a hint of magic) follows each page turn, imbuing these soft, simple collages with a quavering excitement. With a whisper, the moon appears in the (now) very dark sky—a signal that it’s getting to be time for owls to go to bed and probably past time for little readers. A soothing, somnolent narrative voice nudges, “Close your eyes and breathe in deeply. / Nod your head if you feel sleepy.” Caregivers will surely appreciate the suggestion, as well as the gentle lesson in preparing for and accepting sleep. More learning lies on the final page, which delivers a glossary that offers rich information about the nighttime occurrences, animals and plants featured earlier.
A delightful bedtime book that encourages both imaginative play and restorative rest. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-227447-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Pick this delightful story for a Christmas storytime, for library collections, or for family reading around the Christmas...
A family of four buys a cut pine tree, takes it home, and, with the help of friends, decorates it for their Christmas tree.
The family drives to a tree lot, selects a tree, and takes it home on top of their car. The mother, the father, and their two children set up the tree, with the mother using a saw to trim the tree trunk. Boxes of decorations are brought in, and then friends arrive for a decorating party. When all the decorations are in place, the page turn reveals the completed tree in all its glory. That illustration is printed in landscape format across the double-page spread, so the book must be rotated 90 degrees to emphasize the tree’s height, a clever and surprising feature. The family’s interracial, with a white dad and black-haired, brown-skinned mom. Other characters at the tree lot and the party include people of different ethnicities. The short, rhyming text has a bouncy, appealing tone, with four brief lines of text per page. Delightful mixed-media illustrations use a flattened perspective, simple shapes, and glowing, light-filled backgrounds for a fresh take on the tree-decorating tradition. The illustrations are all in double-page-spread format with compositions that will work well for reading to a group or with just one child in a lap.
Pick this delightful story for a Christmas storytime, for library collections, or for family reading around the Christmas tree. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9571-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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