SWITCHING ON THE MOON
A Very First Book of Bedtime Poems, collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, illustrated by G. Brian Karas, Candlewick, 96 pages, $26, ages 0 to 5
The man in the moon, the moon in all its phases, stars, bats on the wing, owls in the wood, teddy bears and beds, “big or small/ or lumpy or bumpy,” populate the poems in this collection, an extended lullaby that will be to infants and toddlers as lettuce was to the Flopsy Bunnies.
Sleep-inducing, in the best possible way, are Brian Karas's luscious paintings, with bouffant moons and sparkling starlight in inky velvet skies. The three sections of the book, Going to Bed, Sweet Dreams and In the Night, cover all the bedtime and sleep-time bases – even tooth brushing and the tooth fairy – and include poems by Anonymous, from Mother Goose and the likes of Tennyson, Pauline Johnson and Sylvia Plath. Langston Hughes's The Dream Keeper could be sung to one's own music: “Bring me all of your dreams,/ You dreamers,/ Bring me all of your/ Heart melodies/ That I might wrap them/ In a blue cloud-cloth/ Away from the too-rough fingers/ Of the world.”
COUNTING ON SNOW
Written and illustrated by Maxwell Newhouse, Tundra, 24 pages, $16.99, ages 2 to 5
“10 Caribou Crunching … 9 Muskoxen Mingling … 8 Ravens Raving.” Thus begins the alliterative countdown from 10 to 1 that is Counting on Snow. The double entendre of the title of this intriguing and uniquely Canadian counting book is borne out in its Arctic tundra setting, a landscape in which snow can surely be counted on.
Snow, small white dots of paint speckling the terrain, begins to fall as the muskoxen mingle, and increases incrementally to a virtual white-out as 7 trumpeter swans trumpet, 6 seals slip, 5 wolves watch, 4 hares huddle, 3 polar bears prowl, 2 snowy owls swoop. By the time we get to “1 moose, silent in the fallen snow,” snow has blanketed the moose's barely visible but still iconic shape. On the final page of this book, clear skies prevail, as does a herd of muskoxen, black shapes circling their young.
MY FAVOURITE FAIRY TALES
Retold and illustrated by Tony Ross, Andersen, 84 pages $26.95, ages 3 to 6
Among the best known of the seven fairy tales in this collection are The Musicians of Bremen, Rumpelstiltskin and Beauty and the Beast. Other, not so well known ones are Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess and Sweet Porridge.
All are lively interpretations by the inimitable Tony Ross; his antic watercolours of long and flaxen-haired maidens in distress and villains both small (think Rumpelstiltskin) and large and hairy, perfectly capture the tales' cheerful, always happily-ever-after mood, but neither text nor pictures stint on that cliffhanging moment when the dastardly could triumph if magic does not win the day.
This is a book that should be read aloud. Ross gives plenty of cues about modes of expression: He enlarges fonts, supplies exclamation points with happy abandon and never resists a telling adjective.
In short, his tales are never anything but vivid. Small children “reading” over the reader's shoulder will get an eyeful as well as an earful.
THERE'S GOING TO BE A BABY
By John Burningham, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, Candlewick, 48 pages, $20, ages 2 and up
Two icons of modern children's literature have conspired, with words and simple but oh-so-charming pictures, to deliver this delightful and decidedly non-treacly iteration of this oft – and not always so well – told tale. The story begins: “There's going to be a baby, said to a small boy who, 3, let's say, still emperor of all he surveys, is propped up in bed under a cozy duvet with a cat beside him and a potty under the bed. These words are spoken by his mother, who's sitting on the floor, in a conversational pose, let's say, leaning on the bed.
