ALL SLEEP

Bedtime rhymes, good-night verses, poems to fall asleep on--in just that kind of easy-going, mostly unclichÉd mode. Some speak in a motherly voice: ""A lamb has a lambkin,/A duck has a duckling,/And I have a baby,/Good night, good night,/I have a baby,/Good night."" (""Even a frog./Has a wee polliwog,/And I have a baby,/Star light,/Star bright,/I have a baby, Good night."") Familiar strains appear throughout (""Moon Boat, little, grave and bright,/Tossed upon the seas of night"")--with ""Roll Gently, Old Dump Truck"" set to ""Flow Gently, Sweet Afton."" There's playful humor, too, in ""Grandpa's Lullaby"" and ""Grandma's Lullaby."" (The latter switches from a stanza of baby-talk patter to ""And now, for Grandma's sake, hush up!"") There's animal whimsy in ""The Puffin,"" near-nonsense in ""The Half Lullaby."" There's enough diversity, in sum, to make this a true selection--each poem independently set in a handsomely designed double-page spread of Tafuri's characteristic, nursery-world devising.