The Boy Who Wouldn't Go to Bed

Determined to stay up all night, a young boy rides his little car around the house and begs a tiger, a marching band, and other toys to join him, but one by one they all drift off to sleep.

PreSchool-Grade 2. As she did in The Bear under the Stairs (Dial, 1993), Cooper takes a gentle, wry look at a child's imagination. At bedtime, a young boy takes a fantasy trip in his little red car into a land filled with his stuffed animals and toys?all of which are larger than life. In the well-patterned, repetitive text, the child asks each toy to play with him; each replies in its own way that it's not the right time for playing: "Nighttime is for resting, not racing," says the train. As the sun goes down, the youngster journeys through puffy clouds, past bedlike mounds, and under a moon hung by a string, and finally stands "awake and alone, with the sleeping world around him." But not to worry, for here comes his mother to scoop him up, carry him through a land of oversized bathroom fixtures and a giant tube of toothpaste, and put him in his warm, cozy bed. With their careful, creative details (the zipper in a toy tiger's stomach, wooden soldiers parading with toothbrushes, the toy train's cars filled with sleepy nursery-rhyme characters), the dusky golden and purple watercolors complement and enhance the text. Like Denys Cazet's I'm Not Sleepy (Orchard, 1992) and Martin Waddell's Can't You Sleep Little Bear? (Candlewick, 1992), this charming story will soon become a favorite part of the bedtime ritual.?Jane Marino, Scarsdale Public Library, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

After a promising start, this bedtime book from Cooper (Little Monster Did It!, 1996, etc.) runs out of gas. A little boy is tooling around the house in his toy car when his mother calls him to bed. Unhappy with that prospect, he motors the car right into a fantasy land to look for nighttime revellers. It's late; everyone he encounters is sleepy. ``Nighttime is for snoring, not roaring,'' says the tiger, and some soldiers concur in their own manner. The train is too tired; so are the musicians and the moon. Even his toy car nods off. Pushing it homeward, he runs into his mother, ``someone who was ever so sleepy, but couldn't go to bed before the boy did.'' A lullaby book isn't necessarily supposed to be full of zip, but the characters possess such little life that the story seems inordinately drawn out. As always, Cooper's artwork can't be faulted: The sumptuous, imaginative watercolors are replete with dreamy intent. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 3^-6. A boy (who appears to be about two years old) announces to his mother that he is going to stay up all night. He then revs up his red toy car and drives away so fast his mother can't catch him. He soon meets up with a tiger, but the beast is too sleepy to play, as are the others he encounters--soldiers, who march with toothbrushes over their shoulders; animal musicians; and even the moon. At last the boy is so tired he is grateful when his mother scoops him up and puts him to bed. The "real" story emerges in Cooper's ingenious watercolors: a little boy stays up late playing in his room, his surroundings bathed in the golden glow of lamplight. The tiger, looking very tigerish, is poised atop a bureau, and the moon hangs from a mobile's string. The imaginary blends seamlessly with the real, and although children will probably take everything at face value at first, repeated reading will lead them to the wonderful discovery that the boy is really safe in his cozy home with his mom waiting patiently nearby. Susan Dove Lempke