Voyage to Bedtime! Off to See the Sea by Nikki Grimes

"BATHTIME," I WHISPER IN YOUR EAR."

GAMETIME! thinks the toddler child, scuttling to hide beside the sofa where dad grins and points a thumb to Mom, on the trail of the little escapee, who stifles his giggles, hand over mouth, as he begins the nightly game on the way to bedtime. Little bedtime deniers are common and mom, already in her comfy clothes, is up for the game!

And Mama knows just the right metaphor to entice the tot.

"COME!" I COO.

"BATHTIME IS FULL OF MAGIC!"

The flowing faucet becomes a tropical waterfall that fills the lake and the child slip-slides into the soap-bubbly waters.

"MONSTERS AHEAD!"

A rubber ducky rises from the deeps, but he bobs away as the child's feet kick up giant waves to deflect the yellow monster and they...

"...CRASH ON THE SHORE... ... THE FLOOR!"

Big shiny bubbles bounce into the air, reflecting their faces, as the tot dives into the water's depths. But Mama knows what he seeks and quickly, before he can make his move, she...

"...PULLS THE PLUG!"

With blubs and glubs the waters of the world swirl away as if by more bathtime magic, and despite the squeals, as Dad flies the toddler up, up, and away into the towel, there is that welcome sign of parental victory for yet another night.

"YOU... YAWN."

Parents know that bedtime can be a battle royale and/or a little bit of heaven, as Nikki Grimes' poetic story, Off to See the Sea (Soucebooks/Jabberwocky Books, 2021), reveals with great charm and skillful storytelling. The award-winning author is joined by artist Elizabeth Zenon, whose artful mixed-media illustrations will make even veteran parents remember and reminisce over the memories of a warm, sweet-smelling toddler's yawns and snuggles. Bathtime is magic, a magical transition toward sleep in a child's day, made memorable in this gentle story for parents and young children. Says Booklist, "This ebullient account of a common childhood experience bursts with love and universal appeal."

More Fun Than A Barrel of Monkeys! Five Little Monkeys: Five Minute Stories by Eileen Christelow

What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

It's more Five Little Monkeys stories by Eileen Christelow, with the author's one-of-a-kind illustrations, all together in one volume--perfect for reading aloud at bedtime, great fun for long car trips, for beginning readers to practice their skills, and great to get some giggles out of kids at any time!

Author-illustrator Eileen Christelow began in 1989 with her hilarious hit re-telling of the old nursery counting song, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (A Five Little Monkeys Story),  but she didn't stop there. Her five little monkeys have gotten into all sorts of snicker-producing adventures--washing the car, trick-or-treating, baking birthday cakes, and trying to read under the covers in their long history of rhyming, easy-reading stories. Now Eileen Christelow has rounded up eight of her most popular books into one handy volume of eight great stories, Five Little Monkeys 5-Minute Stories (A Five Little Monkeys Story) (Houghton Miffle Harcourt, 2018).(See some reviews here.)

Sticking to the meter and rhyme schemes of the traditional song in each story, author Christelow keeps her little subjects up to all kinds of monkey shines, and in her artwork, Christelow proves herself the master of the sight-gag, keeping all five of her little characters (and Mama Monkey, as well) monkeying around in non-stop fun. For novice readers, the rhyming lines and the jolly artwork provide plenty of sound and visual cues to make for easy going. Each story can be read in about five minutes, but--WARNING!--It's hard to stop at just one. In fact, parents and kids will be saying, "I can't believe I read the whole book!"

Lost and Found! Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

There once lived a mother fruit bat and her new baby. Oh, how Mother Bat loved her baby.

"I'll name you Stellaluna," she crooned.

Each night, Mother Bat would carry Stellaluna clutched to her breast as she searched for food.

The little bat, lovingly named "Stars and Moon," meant everything to her night-flying mother. But even the most loving mother cannot elude all dangers.

One night, as Mother Bat followed the sent of ripe fruit, an owl spied her.

In the struggle Stellaluna loses hold of Mother and falls, her baby wings useless.

But as she falls into the forest of trees, she just manages to catch a branch by one foot. When she grows too weary to hold on, she falls, down, down--but happily she lands in a nest of new-hatched birds.

When Mama bird returns with early breakfast of bugs for her brood, Stellaluna is too hungry to be a fussy eater.

She climbed into the nest, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth.

Plop! in dropped a big green grasshopper.

As time goes by, the little bat learns the ways of birds, sleeping at night, and waking at dawn. She thrives on Mama Bird's provender, but she still sleeps hanging upside down by her feet. One day the nestlings decide to try sleeping Stellaluna's way.

"Eek!" cried Mama Bird. "You're going to fall and break your necks!"

Stellaluna has to obey the rules of the nest, and as she and the baby birds grow bigger, the nest grows full and fuller. But the little birds seem to know just what to do. One by one, Flitter, Flap, and Pip test their wings and then fly away. Flapping like her adopted siblings, Stellaluna discovers that her now strong wings work, too.

She tries to join the fledglings on a branch, but her feet seem not to be made for perching. She flew as long as she could, and still trying to follow the rules, compromised by hanging by her thumbs to rest. Stellaluna is sleeping soundly when loud voices wake her. A group of young bats are gathered 'round to see the strange bat hanging what to them seems upside down.

Stellaluna told them her story.

"You ate b-bugs?" stuttered one.

"Wait!" A big bat pushed through the crowd. "You are my baby, Stellaluna!

The lost-and-found bat is back, wrapped in her mother's welcome wings, in Janell Cannon's classic story of the foundling bat with two families, Stellaluna (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) in its small-hand-sized board book format.

Cannon tells a heartwarming story of the love of a mother and child, with the added message that adopted siblings have a loving bond as well. There is plenty of humor as the little bat tries to imitate the baby birds, and they in turn try to imitate her, and at the happy conclusion, Stellaluna can't wait to share her newly discovered sweet fruit treats with her adopted feathered nestlings. Cannon's illustrations are both lovely and softly realistic, in a narration with a warm salute to mothering, however it happens, a worthy edition for new listeners and fledgling readers alike.

Tough Love! Nope! A Tale of First Flight by Drew Sheneman

"Fish got to swim,

Birds got to fly...."

But maybe not this bird.

One look down... down.... down... and ... down ... from the nest and this wary little parrot scoots back, trying to get back under Mama's wing.

The sky is huge and his wings are so small. And what's down there?

Slavering gray wolves? Prowling orange cats? Circling CROCODILES?

NO WAY!

Mama gives him THE LOOK through veiled lids. She tilts her head to indicate some fearless fledglings faithfully taking to their wings from a nearby nest. Everything about her body language says Come on, sonny, you're a BIRD. Get with the program.

Junior looks over the edge of the nest again. It's a long way to anywhere from there. Look how little his wings are? How many ways can he say NO! He tries saying in in Spanish. In German. In Russian.

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

He has a squawking, flapping tizzy of a tantrum.

The fainthearted fledgling huddles next to an exasperated Mama Parrot. There is a sly look on her face as she picks up her offspring, gives him a great big smackeroo on his cute little baby bill, and then...

Boots him out of the nest!

BOOP!

Mother knows best, in Drew Sheneman's comic lesson in avian tough love, NOPE (Viking Books, 2017). Author Sheneman's career skills as a cartoonist are put to good use in his first picture book venture, told in nothing but negative words, in assorted languages, letting the facial expressions and body language of his characters do the narrating. Fish are born in their element, but for birds, flying is a leap of faith they must elect to take.

Sheneman's illustrations, with his funny cartoon characters center stage, sunny greenery and beckoning blue sky in the background, give this one a benevolent ambiance despite its hard-nosed premise. Kids with empathize with the little parrot, reluctant to make that big step off into thin air but will ultimately cheer, as Sheneman's skittish chick falls, flutters, flaps, and finally has that first flight. With a smug, self-satisfied Yep, Mama settles back in her now empty nest, but her young one also gives her the air as he flies back up, bids Mama a fond farewell, and soars away into the wild blue yonder.

Getting There Is Half the Fun! On My Way to School by Sarah Maizes

"GOOD MORNING! LIVI! TIME TO GET READY FOR SCHOOL!"

That's not good news for Livi! Or for her long-suffering mom, who has to prompt her dawdling daughter at every step along the way.

The princess of procrastination is especially hard to get on track on school mornings.

"SCHOOL IS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED TO LEARN STUFF.

I HAVE GONE TO SCHOOL A HUNDRED TIMES AND I ALREADY KNOW LOTS OF STUFF."

Livi oozes out of bed, being a slimy snail. Just digging some underwear out of the bureau becomes a pirate expedition for buried treasure, fighting off scalawags with a few YAARRGGs along the way.

"COME EAT BREAKFAST!!!!"

Finally in the kitchen Livi mentally morphs into a master chef, concocting amazing chocolate-chip pancakes, as her mother warns that her cereal is in dire danger of becoming soggy.

Upstairs again to brush her teeth, Livi becomes an elephant matriarch, shouldering lesser animals away from her water hole, and when she loads her stuff in her backpack, she suddenly sees herself as as sturdy Sherpa, a powerful porter schlepping her boss's gear up the slopes of Mt. Everest.

"THE BUS IS HERE, LIVI!"

Amazingly Livi makes it through the swooshy doors of the bus to become a stalwart pioneer woman at the reins of a dusty covered wagon on the Oregon Trail. And when she dismounts from her wagon in front of the school, she slips instantly into the role of the glamorous starlet, smiling for the papparazzi and sashaying down the red carpet with a wave to her fans for the grand premier of her movie.

A lollapalooza of a lollygagger, our Livi turns every prosaic moment in her day into a potential procrastination,  but also a chance to live lots of different lives along the way. Expeditious she's not, but adventurous and imaginative she is, in Sarah Maizes' latest On My Way story, On My Way to School (Walker Press, 2014).  Again Michael Paraskevas' jolly comic illustrations capture the mercurial fancy of a main character whose internal life is full invention and variety.

Dillydalliers unite. Your numbers are legion, and Livi is your Queen!

Other books in the series are On My Way to the Bath and On My Way to Bed. (see reviews here).

No Baths for Buccaneers! Pirates Don't Take Baths by John Segal

NO, NO, NO!
I'M NOT TAKING A BATH!

NOT TONIGHT. NOT TOMORROW. NEVER!
I'M A PIRATE, AND PIRATES NEVER TAKE BATHS!

When a piglet tot with piratical pretensions puts his trotter down, Mom knows it's time for a little preschool psychology. She points out that our tot can't be a pirate, because he always gets seasick!

It doesn't work. The piglet changes his persona, presto-chango.

YEP. I'M A RANGE-RIDING, CATTLE-DRIVING COWBOY!

The piglet may be imaginative, but Mom is practical.

"COWBOYS DON'T MIND SLEEPING ON THE HARD GROUND. DO YOU?"

Hmmm! Maybe home on the range is not so cushy.

"FINE! I'M AN ESKIMO. THEY CAN'T TAKE BATHS. IT'S TOO COLD!

Mom counters this ploy by pointing out that Eskimos also have to eat lots and lots of whale blubber.

The game is now seriously on. How many hydro-phobic personalities can our dirty little piglet come up with to get out of his bath? How about an astronaut? No bathtubs in space, right? Well, no, Mom agrees. But "going to the bathroom" is a bit, um, problematical in zero gravity as well.

Oh, yeah.

But this mom finds a way to get her preschooler piglet into the suds, even if he does don flippers and snorkel to do it, in John Segal's latest, Pirates Don't Take Baths (Philomel, 2011). Bathtime battles are part of being a parent and being a preschooler, and Segal's charming illustrations make getting that little landlubber into the briny a little bit more fun.

Break Out the Doilies: Fancy Nancy's Marvelous Mother's Day Brunch by Jane O'Connor

SHHHH! My mom is sleeping late because today is a special occasion An occasion is a fancy way to say it's an important day!

And Mrs. Clancy is one lucky mom. Nancy and her dad have a big morning in the works--a brunch (that's a fancy meal that's half-breakfast and half-lunch) with waffles topped with whipped cream and blueberries. But of course, a Fancy Nancy production also comes with handmade cards with glitter, fresh-picked backyard flowers, a Nancy-created tiara spelling out M-O-M, a tiered server for the finger foods, and a silver-covered breakfast tray with all the deluxe trimmings:

My mom never has any doilies, so it's fortunate (that's fancy for lucky) that I always have some on hand. And I will tie the napkin with a velvet ribbon.

Nancy has everything planned down to the minute when the unforeseen occurs. Mom wakes and wanders downstairs yawning in her rumpled pjs to see what's afoot in the kitchen. Can Dad escort her out before the surprise is spoiled?

In the already New York Times best-selling Fancy Nancy's Marvelous Mother's Day Brunch,(Harper Festival, 2011) the peerless team of Jane O'Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser have another winner in their newest holiday lift-the-flap book. Important elements of the plot are hidden by flaps well integrated into the illustrations and plot, with Nancy's stash of fancy stuff behind the door of her beside table, her ribbons and glitter in her treasure chest, her sleepy mom just outside the kitchen door, and even some yucky critters under the rock in the backyard where her little sister looks as Nancy and Dad pick a bouquet from the garden.

It's another fine fancied-up occasion with the endearing Clancy family, which pairs well as a springtime gift with last year's delightful and again best-selling Fancy Nancy's Elegant Easter for fans of the Fancy Nancy series.

Hairdo Snafu! Fancy Nancy: Ooh La La! It's Beauty Day by Jane O'Connor

I bought special styling mousse. On the can it guarantees "shiny curls with plenty of bounce."

I apply the mousse. (You say "moose," not "mousse"--it's French for foam.) I use a lot more than the can says because my client's hair is very straight. Also because it's so much fun to push the button--poof!

It's hard being the only fancy person in a plain family, but Fancy Nancy Clancy never misses an opportunity to pitch the stylish life.

When Dad invites Mom out for a birthday dinner and a movie date, Nancy seizes the occasion to fancy up her ultra plain-Jane mom. She turns her outdoor clubhouse into the posh Ooh La La Beauty Spa and ushers her mom into a comfy seat for a makeover. Her client loves the hand massage, the banana-and-honey facial complete with elegante turban designed by Nancy, the sea salt foot soak, the recorder music to relax her while she rests with cucumber slices on her eyes, and the fruit parfaits Nancy dishes up as refreshment.

But when it comes to the makeover, her client is a hard sell. Despite Nancy's rainbow of nail polish choices, Mom declines forever fuscia, lotus blossom, and cherry pie polish:

Guess which one my mom picks?

My mom doesn't want any of them. She wants clear nail polish.

Sheesh! But her motto is that the client's wish is her command, so, undeterred, Nancy moves on to cosmetics. Her mom accedes to a modest application of eye shadow, pink lip gloss, and blush on her cheeks. "My mom is so pretty," Nancy thinks.

And now for Nancy's specialty--le coiffure! Nancy is determined that her mom's straight ponytail will be replaced by natural-looking curly tresses like hers. She slathers on the mousse, and using her friend Bree's technique, turns her mom's hair into dozens of small braids. Then she encourages her mom to relax while it dries while she, Nancy, entertains with card tricks and a hula hoop performance.

Then it's time for THE REVEAL!

OH NO!

My mom's hair is horrible, hideous, horrendous! It's nothing like the picture on the can!

Mom's coiffure would make Medusa envious! It's time for the talented amateur to call in a pro. Nancy phones Mrs. DeVine, a former genuine hair professional. Mrs. DeVine's diagnosis calls for a hardcore remedy--hairspray!

"Voila!" says Mrs. DeVine.

"It's magnifique!" I say.

Ever the good sport, Mom dons her trusty little black dress, and with a carbon copy of Mrs. DeVine's cast-iron 1960s "Flip" hairdo, waves gamely as she departs for her big night out, even wearing a sequined pipe-cleaner headband spelling out "MOM," designed and handcrafted by--Nancy.

It's a quintessential Fancy Nancy outing in Jane O'Connor's and Robin Preiss Glasser's just-published Fancy Nancy: Ooh La La! It's Beauty Day (HarperCollins, 2010). With directions for concocting a banana facial, a sea salt and lemon foot bath, a yummy blueberry yogurt parfait, and a light-hearted cautionary tale about the perils of coiffure construction, all buoyed by Glasser's exuberant illustrations, this Fancy Nancy entry is sure to delight her multitudes of fashionista fans.

Bunny Spoof: The Runaway Mummy: A Petrifying Parody by Michael Rex

Once there was a little mummy who wanted to run away.

"If you run away," said Mother Mummy, "I will get you! For you are my rotten little mummy!"

If this opening sounds familiar, you're right. With the opening queued to Margaret Wise Brown's classic The Runaway Bunny, we are off and running in Michael Rex's latest irreverent--but respectful--spoof, The Runaway Mummy: A Petrifying Parody. (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2009)

Like his predecessor, Little Mummy conjures up all the ways he can assert his independence and foil Mother Mummy's attempts to capture him for bedtime.

"If you try to get me," said Little Mummy, "I will turn into a serpent that lurks at the bottom of the sea."

"If you turn into a serpent," said Mother Mummy, "I will become a sea monster that will wrap around you and never let go."

"Not so tight, Mommy!"

As he wiggle-giggles himself out of sea monster mommy's many arms, Little Mummy insists that he will turn himself into a gargoyle, a ravenous jungle plant, a huge night-haunting bat, and a humongous trampling beast--whatever it takes to elude his mommy's shape-changing affection, even when she promises to become a terrible tickle monster to bring him in.

But then Little Mummy hits upon the perfect ruse: he threatens to become a model little boy--a stereotypical soccer-ball-kicking little bunny in blue shorts and white golf tee:

"Then I'll become a little boy who takes karate lessons and learns to play the piano!"

"NO!" cried Mother Mummy, "Not a little boy! That would be horrible!"

"But it will be perfect! My mommy will drive me to Spanish lessons and violin recitals and chess matches! My daddy will coach T-ball and soccer and basketball!"

"Stop! That is too much!" cried Mother Mummy. "You will never have time to be rotten! If you become a little boy with a mommy who drives you all over and a daddy who coaches all your teams, then I would have to use my most savage, awful, terrible bloodcurdling shriek and frighten them all away."

Amidst alarming mutual visions of Mother Mummy as a suburban bunny chauffeuring her little bunny in a red minivan, all this imagining makes Little Mummy tired, so tired that in the final double-page spread, we see Mother Mummy gently tucking him into his own little sarcophagus at last:

"You can let go now, Mommy," he says sleepily.

Following up on last year's spoof of Margaret Wise Brown's classic Goodnight Moon, Rex's witty Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody, (see my review here), in his brand-new book Michael Rex lovingly sets loose his mommy mummy and little mummy, their wrappings flapping askew, as the chase is on, through pages modeled on illustrator Clement Hurd's cozy settings, a parody which in this case is the sincerest form of flattery. Rex has himself a ball in this second Petrifying Parody and children familiar with his venerable source will do the same, especially during the upcoming scary season.