VENETIAN LULLABY

Start the rocking chair in a gentle rhythm and snuggle up for a soothing naptime read and a bit of armchair traveling.

To help her young child fall asleep, a gondoliera mother poles the father and child on a soothing ride through Venice’s canals, complete with general city sights and sounds like nesting pigeons, a sleeping cat, and a dog in a window, as well as uniquely Venetian details like a gondolier singing, people chatting on bridges, lion sculptures, and curtains billowing out over the canals. Each spread contains one four-line stanza, most in an abcb pattern, including suggestive sleepy-time thoughts (“Boatman’s gonna sing, baby. / Close your sleepy eyes”) or sensory imagery (“Float like kites of drying laundry / lifting in the air”). Layered realistic illustrations in muted watery shades include a flowing thread of transparent, mostly water-based dream images that begin with hints of a starry sky. As the ride progresses and the child grows sleepier, the dream subtext becomes more detailed, illustrations featuring lions, fanciful seahorses, birds, dragonflies, fish, and merpeople. Although the text says it’s “time to take a nap,” the final illustrations show a nighttime sky suggesting that this might be a bedtime tale instead. Mother and baby have pale skin, and the father is tanned; general street scenes include people of color.

The lovely lull of the moving gondola and sensory rhyme will soothe both readers and listeners.