WHERE THE GIANT SLEEPS

Radunsky makes a strong bid for another New York Times Best Illustrated honor, setting Fox’s brief, murmurous bedtime rhyme to dreamy close-ups of an archipelago revealed in the first spread to be a sleeping giant. Seen through the telescope of a child who snuggles into bed at the end, a fairy dozes in the grove of trees that is the giant’s hair, a goblin hugs its teddy bear in a haystack, witches sleep in a house on one thigh-shaped peninsula and a dragon snores atop a lighthouse on the other, as an ogre “takes a rest from roaring” on a passing ship. Only the elves are awake, “sewing with all their might, / to make a quilt of moons and stars / to wrap you in . . . tonight.” Casting dim moonlight over drowsy forms made with cloudy edges and soft colors, the artist expertly captures the poem’s tone and makes the slide down into dreamland well-nigh inevitable. (Picture book. 3-5)