NO GO SLEEP!
by Kate Feiffer & illustrated by Jules Feiffer
Father and daughter Feiffers deliver a bedtime book underscoring the notion that sometimes only pure exhaustion will lull a baby to sleep.
When the blue pajama’ed baby announces “No go sleep,” he means it. Page after page of reassurances from parents, the setting sun, the watchful moon, bunnies, owls and even a car driving by saying “Beep, beep, sleep, sleep” are all for naught. The text’s lilting cadence coupled with the cool, nighttime palette might make readers expect the baby to acquiesce, but he’s not one to fall for such standard bedtime-book ploys. When the mommy says, “Please go to sleep,” in a left-hand illustration depicting her leaning over the crib of a calm but still wide-awake baby, the facing page shows baby simply and firmly responding, “NO!” Funny in and of itself after such a long build-up of gentle reassurances, the humor of this blunt refusal is enhanced by Jules Feiffer’s picture of the baby, no longer calm and wide-eyed, but downright irascible and rigid in his adamant, wakeful state. But a page turn brings us to baby immediately closing his eyes anyway and falling fast asleep.
A clever, funny addition to the bedtime-book shelf. (Picture book 2-5)