Overview
Bedtime poems to tickle kids' imaginations, nourish their love of language--and send them happily to sleep at bedtime. In this snappy, snoozy, collection, poet and father Tim J. Myers delivers poems to meet kids' every bedtime mood. Share sweet, silly, touching poems about the bedtime shenanigans of smelly baby skunks or electric-guitar-playing hamsters with luminous pastel illustrations that enhance the moonlit mood.
Synopsis
In some ways, bedtime brings out the best of parent and child. I don't mean that it's always a time of quiet sharing and affection; anyone with kids knows it's often more like herding cats. At age four, my daughter Cassie would describe herself, with unconscious accuracy, as "still wild awake." But for all that, it's essentially a ritual of love and comfort-and all the goodness comes together when we read to our children before they sleep.
That's why I wrote "Dark-Sparkle Tea," and why I included poems to match all of a child's bedtime moods. Kids need, of course, a sense of safety andcoziness I remember how our son Nick, as a four-year-old, once woke up screaming, "Night is never-ending! Night is never-ending!" But children are also open, as always, to humor, curiosity, and wonder. Nick once asked me, "Dad, do you think there's such a thing as aliens-do you think they have such a thing as alien hamsters?" And kids inevitably want, of course, to be entertained our son Seth once responded to a couple of lecture-like sentences of mine with, "Don't tell me again, Dad my ears get stale." Sharp and sassy as they can be, though, they're also suckers for the lyrical when they're in the right mood-as Nick was when he wrote, "I wish the map you could jump into and return to the real world." Or when Cassie, wearing a party hat, announced herself as the "Queen Brave Rainbow Unicorn named Jennifer!" In these poems I promise you the riches of bedtime. I promise a rock-and-roll hamster and the royal land of dreams-snuggling up with a lovable lion and planning future adventures-a crazy sleepwalker and the ease of sleepy bees-affectionate skunks and a worthy watchdog-silliness-sleepiness-cricket song-and all of it sprinkled with moon and stars. And it's my fervent hope that neither your ears nor your child's will get stale.Sheilah Egan - Children's Literature
It is obvious beginning on the title page that the author has vast experience and knowledge of the bedtime routines parents try to perpetuate and the delaying tactics that children try to perpetrate. The 23 poems collected in this lovely bedtime title deal with the rambunctious approach to bedtime, the reluctant delayer, the sweetly drowsy, and the simply silly. I adore the skunk mother who praises her smelly offspring in "At the Skunks' House." She calls them "dear stenchlings" and "little stinkhearts" as well as telling them how "we're proud of how badly you stink." They are happy to go to bed in their rooms "full of fumes." This silliness is balanced with the truly beautiful poem "My Brother and Me" as two young boys climb the stairs and settle into their beds: "Like otters on waters, my brother and me, / little bears in their lairs asleep, / quiet and safe and dreaming / like otters a-snooze on the deep." The illustrations are muted, as is suitable for the subject matter, but also glowing and luminous in places—like glimpsing the stars through the curtained bedroom window. The poems are written with different rhythms, styles, cadences, and meters which keep them fresh and lively as the reader turns the page anticipating the next little gem. My only reservation about this title is the inclusion of "A Burglar Came on Saturday Night," which is actually quite funny as the dog bites the burglar's behind and scares him away, but sleepy time poems should, in my opinion, be aimed at helping little people face going to bed. This poem would be a wonderful addition to an older collection of poetry, where it would be greatly appreciated by the nine- to eleven-year-old group who find the ideaof a bad guy being bitten in the "rumpus" quite humorous. 2006, Boyds Mills Press, Ages 3 to 8.
Editorials
Children's Literature
It is obvious beginning on the title page that the author has vast experience and knowledge of the bedtime routines parents try to perpetuate and the delaying tactics that children try to perpetrate. The 23 poems collected in this lovely bedtime title deal with the rambunctious approach to bedtime, the reluctant delayer, the sweetly drowsy, and the simply silly. I adore the skunk mother who praises her smelly offspring in "At the Skunks' House." She calls them "dear stenchlings" and "little stinkhearts" as well as telling them how "we're proud of how badly you stink." They are happy to go to bed in their rooms "full of fumes." This silliness is balanced with the truly beautiful poem "My Brother and Me" as two young boys climb the stairs and settle into their beds: "Like otters on waters, my brother and me, / little bears in their lairs asleep, / quiet and safe and dreaming / like otters a-snooze on the deep." The illustrations are muted, as is suitable for the subject matter, but also glowing and luminous in places—like glimpsing the stars through the curtained bedroom window. The poems are written with different rhythms, styles, cadences, and meters which keep them fresh and lively as the reader turns the page anticipating the next little gem. My only reservation about this title is the inclusion of "A Burglar Came on Saturday Night," which is actually quite funny as the dog bites the burglar's behind and scares him away, but sleepy time poems should, in my opinion, be aimed at helping little people face going to bed. This poem would be a wonderful addition to an older collection of poetry, where it would be greatly appreciated by the nine- to eleven-year-old group who find the ideaof a bad guy being bitten in the "rumpus" quite humorous. 2006, Boyds Mills Press, Ages 3 to 8.—Sheilah Egan