THE NIGHT IS LIKE AN ANIMAL

In a story poem by a first-time picture book creator, Night is a big shaggy bear, the bringer of darkness and the protector of sleeping children. Nibbling ""until the day is done,"" Night laps a drink from the Milky Way, then curls up beside the bed of three children, nearly filling their room. Before dawn, Night slips away ""past bedroom doors"" and is gone, leaving only its paw prints ""in shadows/upon the morning lawn."" Whitman's dreamy torn paper pictures create a gentle mood and portray the bear as a soft, appealing creature; if the text is self-consciously poetic, it is also reassuring in its depiction of the night as benign.