EVERYONE'S SLEEPY BUT THE BABY

In a board-book tale that will feel all too familiar to many sleep-deprived parents of infants, a baby just doesn’t want to settle down and go to sleep!

Mommy, Daddy, and even the dog are fighting yawns and drooping eyelids. Meanwhile, a bright-eyed baby is playing on the carpet with no signs of slowing down. Readers follow the baby through their bedtime routine: bathtime and then snuggling with stuffed animals. The text lists many objects in the environment that are sleepy, from the bubbles and bathtub to the stars in the night sky. Throughout it all, the baby’s big round eyes stay wide open, and they are ready to play. It seems as though the baby will never mellow out and rest. Finally, after drinking a bottle while held in Mommy’s lap, they are shown asleep in their crib. Bright, geometric illustrations with plenty of busy patterns provide visual interest but are perhaps too busy for infants of the age depicted. Repetitive rhyming stanzas about the indefatigable baby and the very sleepy environment may help calm young readers at bedtime—or at least help exhausted parents feel seen. Human characters have beige skin.

A cute bedtime story that revisits a well-known theme.