Night Life: Sleep Tight, Anna Banana! by Dominique Rogues

IT'S LATE AT NIGHT. ANNA BANANA IS STILL READING, EVEN THOUGH HER PARENTS SAID "LIGHTS OUT!"

Anna is lost in her book, but her plush compatriots are pooped. Her reading lamp is keeping them awake.

"WE'RE SLEEPY!" GRIPES GRIZZLER.

Anna suggests they close their eyes and keeps turning the pages. Foxfire tries to switch off the light, but she yanks him back by his tail without missing a single syllable. The rest of the plush pets try to sneak into a dark corner to get some shuteye. Anna Banana notices and retrieves her entourage rather roughly.

"ANNA LIKES TO HAVE ALL HER STUFFED ANIMALS AROUND HER!"

It's a banana republic in Anna's bedroom! Nobody sleeps till Anna sleeps, apparently.

But at last Anna begins to yawn and snuggle under her comforter. The reading lamp finally goes off with a welcome CLICK!... and so does Anna, drifting into dreamland almost instantly.

CLICK! BOING BOING BOING! HONK! HONK! BANG! THEY'RE OFF!

Her stuffed animals are out to give Anna Banana a little taste of her own medicine. They're ready to rumble! They're bouncing on the bed! They're ready to party hearty!

"ARE YOU NUTS?" SHOUTS ANNA.

Turn about is fair play, her plush pets say, pointing out that they are just taking a page from her book, so to speak. And at last Anna gets it.

"SORRY, MY LITTLE PEEPS!"SHE SAYS.

And it's a good night at last in Dominique Rogues' Sleep Tight, Anna Banana! (Roaring Brook Press, 2014). With a light-hearted lesson in doing unto others, artist Alexis Dermal's droll little plush peeps--Fuzzball, Foxface, Grizzler, Whaley, and the penguin PingPong--give readers plenty of punch lines to ponder in their thought bubbles as they struggle to get some zzzzs. It's a bedtime tale that leaves them laughing and hoping for more Anna Banana.