THE SLEEPY MEN

Another from Brown's canon of bedtime books, full of lulling cadences and rhythms. A big sleepy man and a little sleepy man get ready to hit the hay—they yawn and stretch and crawl under their covers. After "the big sleepy man put his head on the pillow and the little sleepy man put his head on the pillow. And the big sleepy man sang a big sleepy song and the little sleepy man sang a little sleepy song," the big sleepy man tells his little cohort a story. It concerns the man on the moon—-once a little man who dashed about and dined and also went to bed—and the story sets the little sleepy man into a dreamy drift and so, to sleep. Well-paced repetitions are broken up by longer narrative sequences, lyrically served by Rayevsky's robust illustrations—acrylic paintings with the feel of colorful, detailed woodcuts. They make pleasing counterpoints to a classically framed lullaby. (Picture book. 3-7)