Bedtime for Bo: Step-By-Step Basics Plus 5 Projects

A New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children's Book of 2022 ★ Stretch like a giraffe and snuggle like a meerkat with Bo and Mommy as they get ready for bed!

It’s time for bed, but little Bo isn’t ready to stop playing quite yet! As his mother gamely guides him through his nighttime routine, he imitates various animals—a hibernating bear after eating a snack, a snuggling sea otter when taking a bath, a coiled python while curling up under the covers… Mommy joins in on the fun and keeps one step ahead of Bo until he falls asleep, soaring like a bird into the world of dreams.

A lively and imaginative take on getting ready for bed that celebrates creative family play and the joyous love between mother and son.

Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold made her literary debut in 2009 with the novel The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am, which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2013, and awarded the prestigious national Vesaas First Book Prize and nominated for the Norwegian Booksellers’Prize in 2009. Monsterhuman, Skomsvold’s second novel, was shortlisted for the NRK radio P2 Listeners’ Prize and was nominated for Best Norwegian Book of 2012 by the magazine Natt & Dag. Her third novel, 33, was published in 2014, and in 2017, she published The Child, an acclaimed, highly personal novel about love and childbirth. A versatile and prodigious writer, Skomsvold writes fiction, poetry, and children’s books. In 2021, she published the picture book Bedtime for Bo, in collaboration with artist Mari Kanstad Johnsen.

Mari Kanstad Johnsen is an awarded and acclaimed visual artist, children’s book author, and illustrator. She has a bachelor’s degree from Oslo National Academy of the Arts and a master’s from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts & Design in Stockholm. In 2012, Kanstad Johnsen’s illustration for picture book Vivaldi won a Gold Award for Illustration in the National Norwegian Graphic Design Awards and was included in Flavorwire’s list of “The 20 Most Beautiful Children’s Books of All Time.” In 2017, she was honored to receive a special mention for Jeg Rømmer (I’m Out of Here) at the international Bologna Ragazzi Awards. Mari Kanstad Johnsen has illustrated for several newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Kari Dickson grew up bilingually, as her mother is Norwegian and her grandparents could not speak English. She holds a B.A. in Scandinavian studies and an M.A. in translation.