Going to Sleep on the Farm

As a father helps his young son get ready for bed, the child asks how the various animals in the barnyard prepare fo the night, in a beautifully illustrated bedtime story.

PreSchool-Grade 1-- A well-planned and well-developed book, both deceptively simple and complex. It opens with a father and young son gathering up a box of toy farm animals. The two figures are rendered in isolation against a stark white background. The boy asks his father how each of the various animals go to sleep. The father replies with a short rhyme that appears under an illustration showing first the individual creature and then a more inclusive farm scene with highly detailed backgrounds. The contrast of the bare white background with the realistic presentation of the barnyard creates a push-pull idea, a visual echo of the call/response motif set up in the text. Wijngaard's sparkling watercolors are a tour de force; he moves confidently from image to image, from the changing movements and expressions of the father and sleepy child, to authoritative paintings of the animals, all within the changing light and shadow of a waning day. Extending the story from cover painting to endpapers, these scenes make for a soothing and intriguing bedtime book. --Judith Gloyer, Milwaukee Public Library
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

One tranquil evening, a pajama-clad boy sprawls on the floor beside his father, eking out a few more minutes of play with his plastic barnyard animals. When the son asks how a cow goes to sleep, the father replies, "A cow lies down in the soft, sweet hay, / in a cozy barn, at the end of the day. / And that's how a cow goes to sleep--Moo-moo." Quack by quack and neigh-h-h by neigh-h-h, each animal is laid on its side in the box until no one is left but one drowsy boy--whose father tenderly carries him to bed while continuing the story's gentle rhythm. Winjgaard's arrestingly realistic watercolors alternate winningly between the simple father-son relationship--against stark white backgrounds--and the rich, detailed habitat of farm animals. His superlative, painterly style combines portraits and landscapes with equal finesse, as he presents striking, diverse perspectives of an idyllic farm scene. (The artist also exhibits a keen observation of children's movements as play gives way to sleep.) And while Lewison's language may not be quite as noteworthy as the artwork, her guileless verse seems perfectly suited to a father trying to amuse his offspring. This singular book combines powerful images with the fun of a bedtime game that can be adapted to many sleepy imaginations. Ages 3-7.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As a drowsy little boy puts his toy animals into their box, he asks his sleepy dad (lying on the floor beside him) how they go to sleep. Dad replies in repetitive, soporific quatrains (``A pig curls up with her family or friends/Where one pig starts, another pig ends/And that's how a pig goes to sleep--Oink, oink./That's how a pig goes to sleep''). The book ends with the child snuggling into his own bed. In Wijngaard's lovely, luminous art, the relaxed poses of man and boy are wonderfully authentic. Meanwhile, the exquisitely portrayed animals are added, one by one, to a pleasant farmyard, depicted from several imaginatively chosen points of view (including the child's window), all nicely summed up in the endpapers' broader vistas of the farm at sundown and by moonlight. A captivating bedtime book, wrought with unusual thought and care. (Picture book. 2-6) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.