BooksForKidsBlog

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Serial Sleepover! Go Sleep in Your Own Bed! by Candace Fleming

SNUGGLED IN. SNUGGLED DOWN.

BEDTIME ON THE FARM.

Inside the farmhouse a girl snuggles under her quilt, sleepily nodding over her book under the yellow light of her bedside lamp. Outside her window the sky is deep blue, and the first stars are winking on.

Is everyone in bed? Not quite.

Pig is waddley-slogging toward his lovely mucky sty, only to find something unexpected.

Cow is cozily curled up inside, a contented smile on her face.

"GET UP!" PIG SQUEALED.

"GO SLEEP IN YOUR OWN BED."

"OH, HAYSTACKS!" COMPLAINED COW.

Reluctantly, Cow mooooves, her mucky hooves clomping to the barn where she knells down into her own stall.

"BWACK!"

Cow finds a chicken already roosting in her stall and grumpily gives Hen her walking papers!

"GO SLEEP IN YOUR OWN BED!"

Unhappily, Hen flaps off to settle her feathers down in the chicken coop. But for some reason, Hen doesn't quite fit. Someone else is snoozing in her straw. It's Horse! Oh, Fuss and Feathers! Squawking and pecking, Hen heads Horse out the door and toward the barn.

Horse plods off to the stable, yawning drowsily. But he finds Sheep snoozing in his spot, and orders her to schlep herself off to the sheep pen, where Sheep finds Dog fast asleep, snoring away in her spot with the flock.

"OH BAAAH-THER!"

Sheep boots Dog out. Dog pads dejectedly off toward the kennel, but it seems another sleeper has already bedded down in his doghouse.

MEEEEEOOOOOW!

Drat! It's the old story of musical beds, and now Cat seems to be the odd one out as he sadly tiptoes to the darkened doorstep. But inside the farmhouse, there is someone who is looking for a furry bedfellow to share her cozy quilted bed.

"IT'S BEDTIME ON THE FARM!"

Candace Fleming's latest, Go Sleep in Your Own Bed (Shwartz and Wade, 2017), is a cumulative critter story with a "Go sleep in your own bed" refrain that encourages youngsters to chime in, one that has the feel of a homey folk story. Fleming adds clever dialog that makes for skilled wordplay with alliteration and puns in the inventive expletives of the would-be sleepers.

Meanwhile, in her comfy, countrified illustrations reminiscent of Betsy Lewin's celebrated artwork in Doreen Cronin's Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (A Click, Clack Book), artist Lori Nichols deftly uses a nighttime palette to add a healthy helping of humor with her comic critters misappropriating each other's beds and brings the story to a satisfying full circle with everyone right where they ought to be--and with girl and cat asleep together under the light of the now-risen moon at her window. A sweetly soothing ending makes for a classic addition to the bedtime library.

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