DON'T TURN THE PAGE!

This book within a book tells the story of a little hedgehog who resists reading a bedtime story about a little bear—or is it also a story about a little bear who reads a book about a little hedgehog?

The front-cover art shows the hedgehog snuggling with her mother while they read a book that looks like the one readers hold in their hands. The back-cover art shows a pair of bears reading the same book. Within the covers, the story opens with the hedgehog child, Sami, resisting a bedtime story about a bear. Mama is patient but prompts her to choose a book to read later. Sami acquiesces and then asks Mama to read the beginning. The accompanying picture’s perspective allows readers to look over her shoulder to read a verse in the book within the book about a little bear getting ready for bed. At first Sami says, “Don’t turn the page,” but her curiosity gets the better of her. Ensuing pages depict continued reading punctuated by Sami’s own preparations for bedtime as she mimics the little bear putting on pajamas, brushing teeth and reading. The final page delivers a conclusion in which the art shows the bears, not within the hedgehog’s book, but living beside the hedgehogs’ home.

A charming, metafictive good night.