Once Upon a Bedtime Weary.... Edgar Gets Ready for Bed by Jennifer Adams.

"Once upon a midnight dreary...." a mother Raven was growing weary with her son, Edgar, doubtless named for that moody master of dark literature, Edgar Allan Poe. She sighs as she tries to move him along toward bedtime.

But, not surprisingly, Little Edgar has a negative side.

EDGAR! FINISH YOUR VEGETABLES!" SAYS BIG RAVEN.

"NEVERMORE!"

Big Raven orders Edgar to stop chasing his sister. She commands him to tidy up his room. Edgar has one word for it all.

"NEVERMORE!"

Big Raven orders Edgar to take a bath, but testing the water with one toe, Edgar envisions sharks cruising just below the surface.

"NEVERMORE!!"

Mama Raven drags the contrary Edgar through tooth brushing, pajama-ing, and leaving his sister alone! She asks him, firmly, to sit down while she gets everything in order, but Edgar refuses to be still... until Mama Raven, with a sigh, comes up with a different suggestion:

"COME ON, DEAR, AND I'LL READ YOU A STORY."

She begins reading from little Edgar's favorite book: "Once upon a midnight dreary...."

Wee Edgar settles down beside Mama, but then, with a worried baby frown, he has to ask...

 "DO YOU STILL LOVE ME?"

And there's only one thing that Mama Raven can say, in Jennifer Adams' Edgar Gets Ready for Bed: A BabyLit®First Steps Picture Book (BabyLit First Steps Books) (Gibbs Press, 2014). Mama Ravens love their little ones evermore, and as cute as this diminutive naysayer is, everyone will love little Edgar, terrible two though he may be. Preschoolers may not have a clue about Edgar Allan Poe's dreary, weary, sorta scary poem, but they will thoroughly understand this little raven's reluctance to say goodnight. Illustrator Bob Stucki provides quaint nineteenth-century ambiance, with an ornate doorway with its black raven door knocker, period furniture, and clawfoot bathtub, and especially the carved raven over Edgar's bedroom doorway, which will add to the fun for slightly older youngsters and parents who loved (or suffered through) Poe's poem, too.