UNDER THE BED

Sure, there are lots of things under the bed you’ll be sleeping in tonight, but as Bright rhymes it, they’re too busy or lazy or sleepy or scared to be bothering you. There are bugs, dragons, an alligator, and snakes, each set on double-paged landscapes designed to take the scare out of them. “Under the bed is a grizzly bear / (Now, don’t ask me how he got there), / Rolling and scratching, like grizzlies do, / And far too lazy to think about you.” Finally, there’s a great green, moldy, warty, hairy, toothy thing—a close-up of his open mouth should give shivers—who’s got some fears of his own: you. His wails for his mommy and daddy (when he takes his thumb out of his mouth) prompt a stampede and now there’s nobody under the bed. For all of Bright’s vivid imagery and Cort’s grand detonations of color as he goes about depicting this cockamamie bestiary, this is a very soothing affair, especially suitable for bedtime reading. (Picture book. 3-6)