WHEN YOUR MONKEYS WON'T GO TO BED

A clever child uses sneaky tactics to lull two energetic monkeys to sleep.

Charged with getting her recalcitrant monkeys off to dreamland, a resourceful young girl concocts a series of games (go upstairs “without touching the floor!”), tactics (pretend to yawn so the monkeys will too), and projects (build a cozy tent in order to entice them into slumber) to accomplish the nightly ritual of bath, teeth brushing, stories, and bed. Although the girl eventually prevails, it’s not before she too conks out on the bedroom floor with the monkeys, an ending that drifts off a tad too placidly after such a lively beginning. Kids will enjoy the wry second-person narration and animated scenes of monkeys swinging from chandeliers and having feathery pillow fights, but it’s the grown-ups who have woken, sore and disoriented in floor tents of their own, who might have the most rueful of smiles. The predominantly white background sets off the thick-lined cartoon illustrations and draws attention to the brown and tan monkeys and the white girl’s gingery hair. Clever visual gimmicks—cameos from other animals from the When Your… series, books with such titles as The Count of Monkey Cristo—all add to the general sense of silliness.

Preschoolers will giggle, and many a tired caregiver will secretly rejoice in knowing that other families also struggle with bedtime-averse monkeys