No "Little Night Music!" Blanche Hates The Night by Sibylle Delacroix

NIGHT ALWAYS FALLS. But...

BLANCHE DOES NOT LOVE THE NIGHT

ACTUALLY, BLANCHE HATES THE NIGHT!

Blanche definitely does not feel the magic of the night.

Some of us are born night owls, those to whom somnolence comes only grudgingly. Blanche is one of those. Even her name (which means "white") is in direct opposition to the dark side of the diurnal cycle.

Blanche has a cozy room of her own. Her little bed is spread with a comfy polka dot coverlet. He kitten curls up at her feet, and she has her plush toy on her lap. But her bedtime lovey is an owl, with big, round, wide-open eyes, just like Blanche's own.

Blanche does what she can. She beats her snare drum to wake the sun and sings loudly. The moon persists at hanging out at her window, but she does manage to wake the cat ... and her parents!

"STOP THAT RACKET!"

Blanche does it all to keep awake. She sings. She takes off her pajama top, hangs it up on the crescent moon, and does some gymnastics. Despite parental scolding, she plays trampoline on her bed.

But at last the night has its way. Her toy owlet's eyes droop, and so do her own.

Night must fall, in Sibylle Delacroix's charming little sleep-resister's story, Blanche Hates the Night (Owlkids Books, 2016), as Blanche finally goes happily into that good night. Delacroix's simple comic line drawings are set against pages done in a midnight hue of blue, with occasional brown backgrounds when Mom or Dad flip on the hall light to lay down the law to their insomniac daughter. Kids will love to trace the signs of Blanche's progressive surrender to sleep as the pages turn, and it's all in gentle good fun, making this one a bedtime read with a subtle message that sleep is inevitable, if regrettable, for some tots who find it hard to switch off more than their bedside lamps. "Lots of visual oomph and an irresistibly confident heroine front and center," says Publishers Weekly.