Time for Bed
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the Lap Listeners stage.
Why it fits Lap Listeners (for babies in their first year, when books are about your voice, not the plot)
A gentle lullaby in couplets, pairing each baby animal with its parent. The rhyme scheme is so regular that babies settle into it like a rocking chair. Ideal as the final book of the night.
What makes it special
It works like a spell: every couplet lowers the temperature of the room a little further. Jane Dyer's soft watercolors of drowsy animal parents and babies are painted in actual twilight tones, so the book itself seems to get sleepier. As an antidote to overstimulated evenings, few objects in the house work as reliably.
From the publisher
Darkness is falling and everywhere little ones are growing sleepy and being tucked into bed. Sleep…
About Mem Fox
Mem Fox is described on her own site as Australia's foremost writer of picture books for young children; she is a retired Associate Professor of Literacy Studies at Flinders University, where she taught teachers for 24 years. She has written more than 45 children's books, published in 23 languages, plus five non-fiction books for adults including Reading Magic.
Fox was born in Melbourne and grew up in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where her parents were teaching missionaries at Hope Fountain Mission. Possum Magic began as a university course assignment; it was rejected nine times over five years before Omnibus Books took it, and it is now Australia's bestselling children's book.
Also by this author: Possum Magic · Where Is the Green Sheep? · Koala Lou
More from “Sing It, Say It Again”
This book is part of The Best Books for Babies: 30 Teacher Picks (Lap Listeners) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.