A Little Night Music? Duck On A Disco Ball (A Duck in the Fridge Book) by Jeff Mack

Every night it's the same story. Kids ask the same old question.

"Why can't I stay up late like you?"

Parents give the same old answers.

"Because we're grown ups, kiddo.

Little guys need their sleep."

But this kid has pertinent what-ifs: what if his toy duck gets hungry? What if he misses a big party? What if a huge rock rolls into the house?

No luck! He's tucked in with his lovie Ducky and a kiss on the cheek. Same old same old! But why is there always a hint of something he's missing? Like why did he find Duck in the fridge one morning? Or on top of the disco ball? There's got to be another reason why he's always being given the bum's rush to bed!

So one night I listened.

But I couldn't believe what is saw...

It's a wild and crazy parent PAR-TEE! His pajama-clad parents jump on the couch, and Duck does cannonballs on the cushions, while dogs, monkeys, and cows crash the party, telling dumb jokes.

"I just ordered a pizza!"
"Great! Will it be long?"
"No. It'll be round."

The party-goers' noshing trashes the house, as Mom grabs a guitar and Dad shouts into the mike:

"I WANNA ROCK!"

Duck heads out, promising to procure one, and soon the living room is hit with a huge Rolling Stone!

"Heavy" says one hipster quipster.

"It doesn't get any boulder!" says the other.

At which point the parents drift out the window and fly through the moonlit sky with Duck, until they finally return just before dawn to bed down for some shuteye.

And when the kid wakes up, the house is just like he left it. Was it all just a crazy dream? But then...

Why is Duck conked out behind the sofa--with a guitar?

It's a wild and crazy night in Jeff Mack's Duck on a Disco Ball (A Duck in the Fridge Book) (Two Lions Books, 2018). Mack's narration is laugh-out-loud funny, and his comic digital illustrations fit the text, sometimes done in spot-art vignettes, sometimes in full-bleed pages or double-page spreads as the action zooms out or focuses in on the kid who can't wait for his turn to stay up late. It's a bedtime story that fits kids' dreams. Pair this wise-quacking tale with Mack's prequel. Says Booklist, "This goofy bedtime drama is a worthy sequel to Duck in the Fridge (A Duck in the Fridge Book).

Bedtime Resistance Revisited: Sleepy, The Bedtime Buddy by Drew Daywalt

Roderick hated going to bed.

Roderick has apparently polished his bedtime resistance routine for years. In addition to the old standbys--a drink of water and another story, he can keep his parents going for quite a while coming up with reasons why he CANNOT have a pony--including the irrefutable...

... Ponies won't use a litter box.

It's time for some serious parental intervention--in the form of a "special" plush pal.

"His name is Sleepy," said his mother.

"He's your goodnight buddy," said his father.

Roderick's parents put him to bed with Sleepy. Sleepy's spooky stare is hard to take, and Roderick tries stashing him out of sight--on the bookshelf, under his pillow. But he can still FEEL that weird gaze. He sticks Sleepy in the closet.

"Wait!" said a quiet little voice. "Don't leave me alone in here."

Roderick can't believe Sleepy is actually telling him he's scared.

"Of what?" Roderick asked. "You were staring at me all freaky looking
."

"Because you were staring at me all freaky looking," said Sleepy.

Roderick soon finds out that Sleepy knows all the tricks. He politely asks for a glass of water. Then he has to go to the bathroom "because of all the water," but he's scared to go by himself. Then he remembers that he forgot to brush his teeth. He promises to go to sleep after one story. And then he asks for another. The story scares him, so he needs a snack to settle his nerves.

"It's the middle of the night!" Roderick shouted.

Of course, after a sandwich Sleepy has to brush his teeth again. And then he's worried about a witch in the closet. Finally, he wants to talk about the meaning of life. Roderick is both weary and angry.

"I can't sleep because you're mad at me!" whines Sleepy.

"You're the worst bedtime buddy EV-er!"

Roderick the bedtime resistor has met his match, in spades, in Drew Daywalt's laugh-out-loud latest, Sleepy, the Goodnight Buddy (Disney Hyperion, 2018). Sleepy's tactics exhaust Roderick in a turn-about-is-fair-play tale with a comic comeuppance. Daywalt's offbeat humor works well in this story, which somehow ends with sympathy for the parents, Roderick, and even his roommate Sleepy. Parents who are running out of patience with young sleep avoiders will get both revenge and a mutual laugh with their kids, thanks to the absolutely comical illustrations of artist Scott Campbell, whose portrayal of Roderick's eyes tell the whole story. Cannily, Campbell even tucks a clever little sight gag in on the colophon page--a new toy, Wakey, The Good Morning Buddy Alarm Clock.

Drew Daywalt is, of course, the blockbusting best-selling author of The Day the Crayons Quit and its sequels (read reviews here).

Together Forever? Ella Bella Ballerina and the Magic Toyshop by James Mayhew

Ella Bella danced along the street to her ballet lesson. Her teacher, Madame Rosa, was waiting by the door of the old theater.

The other little dancers are already on the stage, whispering excitedly at the sight of Madam Rosa's magical musical box, surrounded by a number of beautiful dolls.

"May we play with them?" asked Ella Bella.

"Why not dance with them?" said Madame Rosa as she opened the music box.

Madame Rosa tells her little ballerinas the story of La Boutique Fantastique, The Magical Toyshop, presided over by a kindly toymaker, and Ella is enchanted by the dancing dolls.

When the lesson ends, Madame Rosa invites Ella Bella to stay and help her tidy up, and as they do, she tells Ella the story of each dancing doll. Ella is especially drawn to two beautiful dolls who dance to the music box as if they were made to be together.

But just then customers come in and begin to look among the music box dolls. One family picks one of the dolls, and another snatches up the other doll. Both families get very angry. No one can buy them both!

But Ella notices that the two dancing dolls look very sad.

"They are very much in love!" she cried. "It would break their hearts to be parted!"

Can Ella Bella Ballerina save the dancing dolls from being separated forever? In James Mayhew's latest in series, Ella Bella Ballerina and The Magic Toyshop (Ella Bella Ballerina Series) (Barrons, 2017), Ella Bella gets some help from toyshop magic in a fanciful story that will please both young doll lovers and balletomaines, illustrated with the author's delicate frou-frou scenes that fit this charming story right down to the dancing French poodles. Appended is an English retelling of the original story of La Boutique Fantastique.

This story pairs well with James Mayhew's popular Ella Bella Ballerina and The Nutcracker (Ella Bella Ballerina Series). (see review here.)

Back to School? What the Dinosaurs Did At School by Refe and Susan Tuma

HAVE YOU EVER COME HOME FROM SCHOOL TO FIND YOUR DINOSAURS SOMEWHERE ELSE THAN WHERE YOU LEFT THEM?

Those pesky nocturnal plastic prehistoric reptiles are at it again.

This time they have sneaked out of their cabinet at night and clambered into your backpack, waiting by the door, all ready for the school day to come.

Smuggling toys into school is not allowed. But these stowaway dinos are truly stealthy. A few minutes alone in the cubbies, and they are free to roam. They hide until school is out, and everyone has gone. Then...

DINOSAURS ARE LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL!

They hit the supplies cabinet first, and have their very own arts and crafts festival, using up most of the paints and leaving the brushes matted and drying stiff. They snack on paper and knock all the books off their shelves. The library shelves are next to get the same treatment.

Moving along, they head for the gym, where they get the balls rolling--soccer balls, kickballs, basketballs, softballs, all over the floor.

NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, WE HAVE TO KEEP THOSE DINOSAURS OUT OF THE....

Uh-oh, they've already found the janitor's closet. Mops, buckets, cleaning sprays, and oh, no, something white and foamy is floating everything out onto the floor of the hall.

They hit the science lab and find all the wrong stuff!

OH, NO! DINOSAURS, DON'T MIX THOSE CHEMICALS!

But then--catastrophe strikes the cafeteria. The dinosaurs have discovered bowls of spaghetti and pots of marinara sauce! It's a dinosaur dinner disaster!

If the teachers find this mess, your dinosaurs will be doomed to the dreaded--

DRAWER OF NO RETURN!

Yes, if the teachers catch them in the act, your dinos are doomed to that desk drawer where forbidden toys go in but never come out, in Refe and Susan Tuma's second book, What the Dinosaurs Did at School (Little, Brown and Company, 2017), the sequel to their popular hit, What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night. The Tumas, famous for their humorous tableaux composed of a full set of toy dinosaurs, put them to good use in this funny story of prehistoric monsters running amok in an elementary school. With the comic photos of their colorful toy dinos shown making merry mischief in an elementary school, new students, especially new Kindergartners, will giggle at the dinosaurs' doings while actually getting a vicarious tour of the school along the way. Going on a schoolwide hunt for dinosaurs may become a new first-day-of-school tour tradition. As Publishers Weekly opines, "The compositions are excellent, the props adorable... and the hyperbolic narration sustains a fever pitch."

Share this one with the similarly themed The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School (see reviews here).

Never Really Gone! The Power of Henry's Imagination by Skye Byrne

Henry's favorite toy was a rabbit called Raspberry. Raspberry was white with floppy ears and a red nose that looked just like a raspberry. Henry and Raspberry had been together a very very long time. Grandpa had given Raspberry to Henry the day he was born.

Of course, Henry loves his white rabbit and takes him everywhere he goes, especially when he goes to sleep.

But one day, when Henry wants to go out to dig carrots, he cannot find Raspberry.

Panic! Henry looks in the places where he's found a lost Raspberry before.

Henry looked in all the usual places--like underneath Grandpa, on top of the lamp, and inside pillowcases.

But Raspberry's not in any of them! Mom and Dad are summoned to get in on the search.  Parents know the dire consequences of a lost lovey, and they turned the house upside down. Under the sofa and beds, they find all sorts of lost things they'd been looking  for and all sorts of things they never knew were lost-- a chess piece, some keys, plenty of crumbs--but no white rabbit.

At last Grandpa has a suggestion:

"There's only one thing left to do.... You must imagine you have Raspberry back."

Imagine I have Raspberry back?" Henry wiped a tear away.

It seems hard, but Henry tries, and since he's done so many things with Raspberry, it's not so hard as he thought. Soon he and imaginary Raspberry  go exploring together, pretend to be pirates, hide from a storm in an imaginary snow cave and heat a can of beans over a campfire. After dinner, Henry and his imaginary rabbit lift off as astronauts flying by the stars. They complete their adventures as two dragon catchers searching for a fabled Purple Dragon.

Henry had so much fun imagining that he completely forgot Raspberry was lost. He even fell asleep as fast as if Raspberry were in his arms.

Is an imaginary rabbit as good as a real one? We'll never really know, because in Skye Byrne's
The Power of Henry's Imagination (The Secret) (Aladdin Books, 2015), there is a second happy ending when we see Grandpa steal into Henry's bedroom and place the now-found Raspberry beside the sleeping boy. Nic George's inventive illustrations play with the real and the imagined, portraying Henry's pretend adventures with Raspberry in thin, slightly disconnected black-line drawings, adding reality--in the form of leaves on the tree Henry climbs and the assorted detritus Dad digs out from under the sofa in the form of of collaged photos. The familiar tale of the lost toy takes finds a novel re-telling in this story about the power of what the poet Wordsworth famously called "that inward eye.""Choice words and creative visuals combine to celebrate and inspire the mind's eye," says Kirkus in their starred review.

Looking Forward: Waiting by Kevin Henkes

THERE WERE FIVE OF THEM. AND THEY WERE WAITING...

Five old-fashioned toys are arranged carefully on a windowsill, as if some thoughtful child had placed them there to see the sky outside. A spotted owl waits for the moon, while a lady pig with a parasol looks for sun. A Teddy with his kite waits for a brisk wind, while the puppy on the sled clearly wishes to see some snow. The accordion rabbit is just there for the company.

In a evocative story of the gentle joy of the activities of daily life and the joys of their anticipation, Caldecott author-artist Kevin Henkes gives young readers an appreciation of the possibilities of what lies ahead for them, what the long wait of childhood will yield. Meanwhile, there is so much to be seen in what lies before them.

ONCE A VISITOR ARRIVED FROM FAR AWAY. HE STAYED A WHILE AND THEN HE LEFT AND NEVER RETURNED.

The visitor, a china Indian elephant, falls from the sill and shatters, and the toys are sad that he is gone, but unaware of his fate. All they know is what they see from the window.

Snowfall, spring and fall, changing cloud shapes and blue skies delight the five friends. Dark skies and lightning storms terrify the watchers, who huddle together fearfully until it is over. Night falls, and we see the five friends apparently snoozing, horizontally arranged along the sill, and a sunny morning finds them back in position, as page turns reveal what the toys have wished for. The presence of the toys' owner is there only as the unseen hand that arranges and rearranges his toys on the sill as time passes. Indeed, on a deeper level, the toys themselves are a sort of projection of the child's imagination of what is to come; it is he who longs for snow for his sled and a moonrise for his window.

Henkes' latest, Waiting (Greenwillow Press, 2015), is a picture book which can be appreciated on several levels. Little of the interior world is seen but the window frame, but the author-illustrator has one surprise in waiting for his readers: a fat spotted cat appears one day, and to the astonishment of the other toys, one morning four kittens in graduated sizes crowd the sill with them. (The cat is a nesting toy, in the Russian doll mode), and the toys see that there are more amazing new possibilities before them.

NOW THERE WERE TEN OF THEM.

AND THEY WERE HAPPY TOGETHER, WAITING TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT.

A lot of life lies in waiting for what happens next, and in his gently evocative parable of reality and possibility, Henkes hints at depths of meaning in the way of the great creators of classic picture books. (Think Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.) Henkes' retro-styled illustrations are cozily charming, yet suggest much more meaning than meets the eye.