Night-Night All: Everyone Sleeps by Marcellus Hall

Everyone was getting ready for bed.

"Goodnight, everyone!" they all said.

Dad switches off the downstairs lights as everyone traipses off toward their bedrooms. Baby is sound asleep, her big sister is ready to snooze, and the cat curls up for a long nighttime catnap.

Even the computer sleeps.

But there is one still wide awake--a big-eyed pug who watches everyone settle down and leave him for the land of dreams.

Feeling all alone in the house, he roams outside to see if anyone is awake.  He sees ducks dozing in a row, frogs sinking to the muddy bottom of their ponds to snooze.  Bears can sleep for months, and giraffes sleep standing up.  Polar bears drowse on ice floes, and walruses sleep on their backs in the sun.

The little pug spots a herd of sheep, all together in a grassy field.  Are they all asleep? He stops to count how many are sound asleep."YAWN!" The pug almost dozes off, himself, before his insomnia reasserts itself and he sadly heads for home.

It's lonely.

And then he sees his house with a lamp shining from one upstairs bedroom.  It's his girl.  And she's not sleeping either.

She couldn't sleep and neither could I.  But maybe together....

The noted and multiple award-winning Marcellus Hall's new Everyone Sleeps (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin Books, 2013) takes a humorous look at the search for sleep as his little pug protagonist sets out to find someone with whom to share his insomnia, with a surprise ending that will give readers a sleepy giggle. Hall's trademark illustrative style is put to good use in his appealing nightscapes as his cute little hero, seriously-seeking-sleep, finally catches some zzzzs.

Popular books illustrated by Marcellus Hall include Karma Wilson's The Cow Loves Cookies, Sherry North's Because You Are My Baby, and Lee Bennett Hopkins' City I Love.

Maybe Monsters: Bedtime Monsters by Ed Vere

.... HE CROSSES THE GLOOPY, SCHLOOPY SWAMP.

GLOOP GLOOP SCHLOOP,

DO YOU THINK HE'S IMAGINING

JUST HOW GOOD YOU'LL TASTE
ALL COVERED WITH KETCHUP?

What IF...?

What not-so-sleepy kid hasn't lain awake in bed and allowed his or her mind to wander, back to a mucky, yucky swamp where a imagined monster wakes up hungry and makes his way inexorably, licking his big fat lips, craving a juicy tasty morsel toward one house... just one house.

What if... he rides his little red bike through the dark forest and tiptoes through thistles and thorns,

SCRITCH SCRATCHY... OUCH!

Closer and closer he comes, and the now wide-awake kid imagines the monster imagining what a tasty morsel lies ahead of him, and he's getting hungrier and hungrier. Is that the monster's tummy, starting to rumble?

GGRRRRUUUUMMMMBLING!

And then,

CREAK CREAKITY CREAK!

HE'S OPENING YOUR BEDROOM DOOR.

HE'S LICKING HIS LIPS....

It's the worst thing imaginable.

It's ...

Well, it's something even more unwanted than a swamp monster for a wide-awake kid! It's back to the grim realities of bedtime in Ed Vere's latest monster mash, Bedtime for Monsters (Henry Holt, 2012), as a belated but definitely monstrously sloppy daddy-smooch gets this kid at last. Kids will love the delicious onomatopoetic sound effects of this pretend-monster tale, as the rhythmic, sorta-scary text is offset by Vere's comical and googly-eyed green monster making his way slowly but surely to that final surprise. "Vere strikes the perfect balance of humor and thrills," says Kirkus Reviews.