Putting the World to Sleep - Hardcover

Bonnie Christensen, the illustrator of many books for children, lives in northern Vermont with her daughter, Emily. She teaches at St. Michael's College.

PreSchool-Grade 2?A cumulative free-verse poem about the gradual falling of dusk and the rising of the moon. The story moves from the outside world?a salt-marsh farm near the East Coast?to inside a cozy cabin. As a mother rocks her baby to sleep, her young daughter mirrors her actions by rocking her stuffed bear. Finally, the youngster and teddy are in their own bed, where all goodnight books end. The lulling effect of the repeated phrases succeeds in slowing the action, calming readers and listeners, and the tale ends on an appropriately quiet note. The effects of the words are upheld by the pictures, which are wood engravings with watercolor accents. The lines are so fine and careful that they are worthy of comparison to Nancy Burkert's work in detail, and to Maurice Sendak's in delicate shading and distancing. But the colors?deep blues and luminous moonlight, delicate skintones and gradual deepening of the sky's light and dark?set this book apart. The variation of long, overhead, and closeup shots give the pictures and the text a sense of movement, of stately rejoicing in the coming of night.?Ruth K. MacDonald, Bay Path College, Longmeadow, MA
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