A youngster settling into bed ponders a curious fact:Â "Elsewhere in the world it's light. / It's morning there, but here it's night."Â
This leads him (or possibly her) to imagine the bird on the window sill flying around the world to say goodnight to everything. Beginning with stars and planets, passing through deserts, mountains and oceans, bidding goodnight to rain forests and animals far away, the bird comes closer and closer to home, to the child's own street and house, yard animals and, finally, his siblings and friends. "Good night, world, / as darkness brings... / SWEET DREAMS / to every living thing." The dreaming child curls up with a stuffed rabbit and the bird. Fisher's slightly surreal mixed-media illustrations on double page spreads combine painted patterns, textures and surprising colors. An oryx bounds across a marbled pink-and-blue desert. Greenish whales cavort in breaking Hokusai-inspired waves, midnight blue and capped with white against a pink sky. On one spread, trees are drawn as crayoned triangles; on another, a single leaf, apparently collage, forms the body. There is much to see and think about in the illustrations for this simple bedtime rhyme. Fittingly, the text concludes with a list of ways to say goodnight in 16 languages, written in appropriate scripts and including pronunciations.A sweet dream, indeed. (Picture book. 2-5) Copyright Kirkus 2011 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
As the sun sets, a towheaded child bids good night to the animals and natural phenomena outside in this simple, languid bedtime book. Perlman's (Pocket Kisses) couplets put a particular emphasis on color ("Turning Earth, good night to you./ Good night, deserts, pink and blue") as the book moves from celestial to earthly realms. With an amalgam of textures, batiklike patterns, and images within images, Fisher's (The Snow Show) pictures offer somewhat abstracted visions of familiar motifs--planets in the sky, breaking waves, animals in their habitats. Swirling strokes give some scenes a sense of motion; "Good night, rocky, gurgling stream," reads the verse as inky, turbulent waters pour down a neon green hillside, dotted by triangular and scribbly trees. Fisher also hand-letters the text and adds a connecting thread: a red-winged bird appears in each spread and eventually curls up with the sleeping child. The text's repetition of good-night wishes strikes a familiar chord, and though the art feels fresh, it has a certain remoteness as well. While the world depicted isn't unfriendly, it's not especially comforting either. Ages 2-5. (July)[Page ]. Copyright 2010 PWxyz LLC
PreS-K--Good Night Moon (Harper, 1947) goes global in this lovely ode to the world. A child getting ready for bed bids good night to everything he knows about. Starting large with the sun and the stars, he includes Earth's deserts, mountains, oceans, and animals, and then narrows in on his neighborhood, family, and friends. The evocative rhyme scans perfectly: "Turning Earth, good night to you./Good night, deserts pink and blue./Good night mountains capped in white./Ocean's breaking waves, good night." Each verse is grandly illustrated with a large, double-page painting. Fisher's multicolored, textured drawings match the expansive tone of the book with a wide palette of swirling colors and layered details. Children will love poring over the lush pictures in this gentle nighttime lullaby.--Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT[Page 92]. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.