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Summary
Summary
In this sweet rhyming picture book, a mother prepares her daughter for bed by telling her about the different animals that live nearby and their nighttime activities. The mother's narrative comes full circle from night to dawn, and the little girl is lulled to sleep dreaming about her animal friends.
Lyrical writing and warm illustrations from the bestselling author-illustrator team of Rose A. Lewis and Jen Corace make this a perfect bedtime book.
Praise for Sweet Dreams
" A pretty...bedtime story."
- Kirkus Reviews
"As a lullaby should, this book has soothing language and illustrations in comforting colors. The rhymes are sweet and satisfying when read aloud. This is a lovely book that any parent or grandparent would enjoy sharing."
-School Library Journal
"Sweet Dreams captures the essence of the genre. The writing is light and benevolent, the drawings both familiar and fresh."
- Wall Street Journal
"The text forms the scaffolding for Corace's elegant spreads, in which distinctively stylized, sharp-cornered figures are muted by a twilight palette."
- Publishers Weekly
Author Notes
Rose A. Lewis is the author of numerous children's books, including the New York Times bestseller I Love You Like Crazy Cakes . She lives in Needham, Massachusetts. Jen Corace is the bestselling author-illustrator of Little Pea and many other books. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-As a lullaby should, this book has soothing language and illustrations in comforting colors. It takes baby along to have a last look at the day that is quickly turning to night. Soon, sweet dreams will take her away. Meanwhile, the story describes what goes on in the natural world while the child is sleeping. The lullaby ambience stays the same as owls and crickets go about their business from sunset to sunrise. The watercolor and ink illustrations are done in soft blues at the beginning of the book but morph into brighter colors as the new day begins. The rhymes are sweet and satisfying when read aloud. The quiet tone is reminiscent of Mem Fox's Time for Bed (Harcourt, 1993) and should be found in a stack with Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon (Harper, 1947) and Susan Marie Swanson's The House in the Night (Houghton Harcourt, 2008). All in all, this is a lovely book that any parent or grandparent would enjoy sharing.-Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
While Lewis's previous books (Orange Peel's Pocket; Every Year on Your Birthday) have dealt with Asian adoption, this soothing bedtime rhyme is addressed to sleepyheads in general. A mother carries a small, sleepy girl upstairs to an airy bedroom as she weaves a series of "moonflower stories" about animals, "Like the one about the baby bear/ Simply much too tired to eat,/ Who made the moonflowers' petals/ A pillow for his feet." The text forms the scaffolding for Corace's (Gibbous Moony Wants to Bite You!) elegant spreads, in which distinctively stylized, sharp-cornered figures are muted by a twilight palette. Following the text closely, Corace creates spacious nighttime scenes reassuringly free of threat or fear. Massed flowers, foliage, and branches loom protectively over the animals, echoing the forms of the parent animals who guard their young under a smiling full moon. In a quiet but dramatic closing moment, the walls of the child's room open out onto the night sky and the moonflowers like an elaborate theater set, a tacit acknowledgment of the longing many children feel for a life that's a little closer to nature. Ages 3-7. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
A mother lulls her child to sleep with vignettes about creatures in nighttime versus daytime: "The butterflies have gone to sleep, / Their wings no longer flapping. / Making room for the nighttime moths, / Their soft gray wings now tapping." The cadence sometimes falters, but its tone soothes. Rich watercolor and pen-and-ink illustrations capture the advent of both night and morning. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
I Love You Like Crazy Cakes, 2000) pens 15 rhythmic quatrains designed to lull a child to sleep. A mother readies a little girl for bed, promising a night of adventures. "Nighttime says a quick Sleep tight' / To the fading morning glories-- / Then wakes up all the moonflowers / And listens to their stories." Succeeding verses present woodland vignettes focused on mice, moths, crickets and other nocturnal creatures. Before the concluding tuck-in, there's a six-page interstice about daytime, as Mr. Moon nods off: "Say good morning to Miss Sunshine / And the company she keeps." The cadences sometimes bump, and sense is occasionally sacrificed for rhyme: "The butterflies have gone to sleep, / Their wings no longer flapping, / Making room for the nighttime moths, / Their soft gray wings now tapping." Corace's full-bleed watercolors often charm: Three nested owlets await mother's return in a many-branched, stylized tree against a turquoise sky bright with stars. Creatures bear little relationship in size, either within or between the double spreads; the moon's shadowed side shifts from right to left and back. The teal-and-sepiadominated palette suits the subject. Contrasting large, opaque color fields with details of animal and plant life and playing visually with indoor/outdoor motifs like toy and real animals, the pictures try to do too much. A pretty, sturdy-enough bedtime story, but not more. (Picture book. 3-5)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
This lullaby has all the right soporific elements for ushering children to sleep. As a mother readies her daughter for bed, she speaks of the great adventures awaiting her little one in dreamland. Lewis' (I Love You like Crazy Cakes, 2000) quiet poem is full of vivid imagery: Nighttime says a quick - sleep tight' / To the fading morning glories / Then wakes up all the moonflowers / And listens to their stories. Like many bedtime books before it, this winds its way through the natural world, spying on little critters from a teeny mouse to a baby bear as they prepare for sleep while also introducing nocturnal creatures. Corace's stylized illustrations, in pen and ink and watercolor, are rendered in a color palette that fittingly darkens from teal to turquoise to midnight blue, brightening for a brief interstice about morning approaching. The last spread is the prettiest, as the walls of the girl's room melt away, and she is shown sleeping outdoors, a smiling moon shining overhead.--Kelley, Ann Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
The apparently irresistible homonyms "night" and "knight" have inspired picture books before ("Good Night, Good Knight" springs to mind), but no reason not to retool them for a slightly younger reader. Especially when the knight in question is a small boy with a spaghetti colander as headdress. Davey, a British illustrator, uses a striking palette of ocher, orange and cinnamon in this delightful debut, which recreates the imaginative pre-bedtime rituals of the aspiring titular knight. Simple, sweet and bound to induce sleep. ARTHUR'S DREAM BOAT Written and illustrated by Polly Dunbar. 40 pp. Candlewick Press. $15.99. (Picture book; ages 2 to 6) Dunbar ("Dog Blue," "Penguin") creates a whimsical image out of a play on words in this story about a young boy, Arthur, who awakens after an incredible dream. "'Wow!' Arthur said to his dog. 'Last night I had a dream.'" And as he explains this to his yawning companion, a small boat surfaces from the top of his hair. The image of this boat in a boy's hair, which grows in size as Arthur tries in vain to get his family's attention to tell them about his dream, is disconcerting. But it makes real the urgency of the imaginative child's vision. When his family finally stop to listen, they too are carried away. SWEET DREAMS By Rose A. Lewis. Illustrated by Jen Corace. 32 pp. Abrams. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 3 to 6) Moonflowers, nuzzling owlets and soft gray moths loom large in this dreamy lullaby book. In rhyming couplets that beg to be sung aloud, a sleepy child is introduced to the nocturnal world that carries on without her. "Up in the sky is Mr. Moon,/ Who'll watch you through the night - /His very round and smiling face/Shines beautiful and bright." Lewis ("I Love You Like Crazy Cakes") follows the familiar bedtime-book arc, touring the nighttime realm outside and dangling the promise of daybreak before tucking the child in at the end. Corace's gentle, slightly melancholic illustrations are fitting for a child's evening goodbyes. NO GO SLEEP! By Kate Feiffer. Illustrated by Jules Feiffer. 32 pp. A Paula Wiseman Book/ Simon & Schuster. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 7) The father-and-daughter team behind "My Side of the Car" reunite here for the story of a determinedly restless baby. When the defiant child yells from his crib, "No go sleep!," everyone from his mother to the moon chimes in to comfort and cajole him into changing his mind. "And the stars said, 'We will twinkle and sprinkle sweet dreams down to you.'" Kate Feiffer's straightforward prose and clever, humorous story speak to Everybaby, and Jules Feiffer's jangly-limbed, blue-eyed boy, illustrated in pen-and-ink with washes of blue watercolor, is adorability incarnate. THE KING WHO WOULDN'T SLEEP By Debbie Singleton. Illustrated by Holly Swain. 32 pp. Andersen Press. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 4 to 9) With a wink to "The Princess and the Pea" and a nod to "Pickle-Chiffon Pie," this jaunty fairy tale twists matters around so that it's the king who cannot sleep. He "loved his only daughter so much that he had resolved to watch over her every day and every night, until he could find her the perfect prince." A humble but resourceful would-be prince finds an ingenious solution to the king's insomnia, and all ends well with a wedding cake. No peas get squashed in the process. PAMELA PAUL ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.