Sleep, Little One, Sleep

From Publishers Weekly This lyrical, soporific book will help induce drowsiness in even the most active readers. While this author-artist team explored what form birth takes for a variety of animals in If You Were Born a Kitten, for this companion volume they take a more abstract approach. Rather than describing how nature's inhabitants sleep, here sleep itself is personified via an array of animals: as a bird, when "Sleep gathers you beneath its feathery wings," and as a lamb that "grazes softly around your bed." The images ease readers and listeners from a visual world into an imaginary and tactile one. Stammen's (A Snow Story) pastel spreads eloquently give form to the metaphors: lambs graze in a moonlit meadow, a polar bear cradles its yawning young, a blue whale can be dimly glimpsed through a haze of bubbles. Occasionally the tone sounds more emphatic or cautionary than peaceful, as in the words accompanying a picture of a lumbering tortoise: "Be patient. Sleep will come,/ trudging closer, closer, careful and slow./ Just you wait!/ Just you wait!" And the final repetition, "Let it come./ Please... let it come!" seems to evoke the desperation of parents who've run out of ideas to lull their child to slumber. But a soothing tone of voice will smooth out such subtle changes in the mood of the text. Just like the little girl pictured in the closing pages riding on a polar bear, sweet dreams are sure to follow. Ages 1-4. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal PreSchool-Grade 1 The droopy-eared, yawning basset hound on the front cover captures a universal bedtime experience: an exhausted parent trying to lull a wide-awake youngster to slumber. The voice is actually a father's (not pictured until the end, nodding off in a rocking chair), and the lullaby has the flavor of a spontaneous song; it contains some quirky ideas, delightful language, and tranquil repetition. Sleep is first suggested by a small spider spinning a cradle web, then by a mouse who "nibbles the last crumbs of day." As the story continues, the animals increase in size, culminating with a polar bear and cubs, whose cuddling cannot be contained on a double-page spread. While the father dozes, daughter's eyes are open, gazing at the toy polar bear on her nightstand. Ultimately, she succumbs, dreaming of flights of fancy on the polar bear's back. Stammen's pastels on dark gray paper and the oversized format will draw attention and admiration in groups and on laps. The artist is quite adept at capturing the unique texture and character of each animal for an affectionate portrait. This is a welcome companion to the pair's If You Were Born a Kitten (S & S, 1997). Here, the tone is a bit more playful, the child a little older, but the warmth and security felt in the familial bond continue. Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.