Poetry PICTURE BOOK - Sweet Dreamers by Isabelle Simler

Translated by Sarah Ardizzone
Illustrated by the author

Published originally in France in 2017
America, 2019 by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

HC $19.00

72 (thick) pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.26 - 135 ratings

My rating:  5 - for the artwork alone, but the translated poems are great, too
Endpapers:  Moon over mountains and water, two different views
ARTWORK:  Digital!  Scratched picture.  Incredible.

See Betsy Bird's outstanding review, description, and discussion of the digital art here.

My comments:Wow.  Just wow.

Goodreads:  A gorgeous bedtime book from an award-winning creator
          From the celebrated creator of Plume and The Blue Hour comes another enchanting animal book. Countless cozy animals are settling in for the night, but they all sleep in different ways. A bat dreams upside down, a hedgehog snuggles into a pile of leaves, and a humpback whale spins in its sleep like a ballerina.
          With its poetic language and lush illustrations, Sweet Dreamers will dazzle young readers as they drift off to sleep themselves.

    Slung like a hammock,

        the sloth dreams

  of spring-loaded sprinters,

      of rockets blasting off,

of pump-action spinning tops,.

  When the stopwatch starts,

          our dreaming racer

              doesn't move

                  an inch.

   The horse dreams standing up,

           in the middle of the herd.

       She never loses her footing,

    although her thoughts break free.

          Puffing up her feathers

              in a quilted hollow,

  the grouse dreams under the snow.

         She spends the night in secret

       beneath that great white sheet.

The Weaver - Thacher Hurd

Illustrated by Elisa Kleven
Farrar Straus Giroux, 2010
$16.99
32 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: Midnight blue

This is a lovely, gentle, very special book. Although the words and illustrations are rendered by two different people, they work beautifully...oh so beautifully...together.

A weaver sits above the earth, watching and weaving. She uses parts of the universe as the threads on her loom, she dyes them the colors of the morning. She weaves in friendship and family, happiness and sadness, anger and love. And as night approaches, her masterpiece complete, she spreads it across the sky and lets it gently fall and settle across the world - warming us, comforting us, and holding our memories.

"Looking down on the world,
the weaver sees
a smile on someone's face,
a hug between friends,
babies crying and then held warm
in their parents arms."

I've been an Elisa Kleven fan for a long time. I can remember reading and sharing Snowsong Whistling to my very first college class at COA. A few years ago at the Reading the World Conference at the University of San Francisco I participated in a workshop run by Elisa Kleven. I've read Ernst and Wish, Abuela and City by the Bay over and over and over. I wish the pages in her books were bigger so that I could closely examine every minute detail.

Poetry. Sheer poetry. Words and pictures alike. Every page is beautiful. This is the perfect gift for a newborn or toddler.

Thacher Hurd's website.
Elisa Kleven's website.

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast: interviews the author and illustrator.

Stormy Weather - Debi Gliori

Walker & Co. 2009
$15.99
4.5
for preschoolers
Endpapers: see below

First glance at the cover - a snuggly appliqued quilt under which a mother/child fox share a book. Window curtains frame a starry sky. When you open the cover the endpapers show the two foxes romping through the winter woods. Trees are bent, it feels windy - but safe.

"Pull up the quilt, turn out the light,
dear child, it's time to say good night.
In darkness black and soft and deep,
I'll watch beside you while you sleep."

Yes, it's stormy - in the ocean, in the forest, in thunder and lightning, animals from snails to bears snuggle with their young. They are safe and warm and happy. Then we get to the final endpapers and see a calm outside winter world with a big tree. Within the openings of the tree are content aninmals living their lives - and the curtained window where the foxes reside.

Lovely book - perfect to give with a baby quilt at a shower!

Full page illustrations - stormy yet tranquil and safe. They're wonderful.

Sleepy ABC - Margaret Wise Brown

Illustrated by Karen Katz
Harper, 2010
$16.99
"Ages 4-8"
Rating: 2
Endpapers: Bright orange

Here's a sleepy nighttime book that is vibrantly colored and wide awake - it doesn't really seem very sleepy to me. I adore Karen Katz's paintings, but his one doesn't seem to match the worrds. And Brown's words - written and copyrighted in 1953, seem so old-fashioned. Well....I guess they are....strike me down, now, lightning bolt!

Unfortunately, this book just doesn't work for me, as much as I'd love it to.

Bedtime in the Southwest - Mona Hodgson

Illustrated by Renee Graef
Rising Moon, 2004
$14.95
32 pgs.
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Desert at night with saguaros

What does a southwest critter do when Papa says it's time for bed?

In this adorable book we see some different bedtime avoidance techniques - from many different Sonoran desert animals - hares and roadrunners and geckos and coyote, to name just a few. Hiding and begging for a drink, hopping on the bed - very cute and funny.

My almost-two-year-old granddaughter's been rearranging furniture, emptying bureaus, making nests after "lights out." This will make a perfect bedtime story from her Nan who lives in the desert!

Ocean's Child - Christine Ford & Trish Holland

Illustrated by David Diaz
Golden Books/Random House
2009
$15.99
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: Aqua/lavender batik

This gentle bedtime, good-night story is swathed in batik. The backgrounds (from edge of the page to edge of the page) are batiked. Some of the animals are batiked. Batik is a special kind of fabric created with wax resist. It's my favorite fabric - it's beautiful.

Each two-page spread ends with a similar soft chant. For example:

Safe and snug in his leafy bed,
Baby otter is rocked to sleep.
To ocean's child we say good night.
Good night, little otter, good night.

In this way we also say good night to walrus, dolphin, whale, polar bear, puffin, sea lion, orca, albatross, seal....baby and child.

Mmmmmm. A lovely bedtime book.

Sleepsong - George Ella Lyon

Illustrator: Peter Catalanotto
For: very young
Published: 2009
Rating: 4
$16.99
Endpapers: Mustard

Mom, Dad, and small daughter prepare for bed on the top portion of the page, while animals in the natural world are depicted sleeping in the gray-lavender tones on the bottom portion of the page. Separated by an inch of sunset, the words dance across the page.

"Everthing yawns -- Shh shh -- When night comes on -- Shh shh
Hen on her roost -- cat on the bed -- you in may lap
Sleepyhead."

The music is included at the end and you can even hear it at georgeellalyon.com

Bedtime at the Swamp - Kristyn Crow

Illustrator: Macky Paminutan
Published: July, 2008
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Swampy cranberry

I was sittin' by a swamp just hummin' a tune
with the fireflies dancin' 'neath the fat golden moon
when off in the distance was a splashin' sound
so I stood on my tippy-toes and looked around.

This is a fun bedtime story, illustrated for the most part in deep purple/greens- with rhyme, rhythm, and cadence. The expressive of the kids are very cute.

Mom sends a sibling, then cousins, to summon the nameless boy to bed. But when a real monster appears at the next Splish Splash Rumba-Rumba Bim Bam BOOM! he is not as scary as the mom that's now crashing throught the swamp behind him!

A bedtime book in the same genre of Where the Wild Things Are. Fun