WHILE YOU'RE ASLEEP

If you knew what was happening while you were fast asleep, you’d wake up right away.

This enjoyable picture book begins as a typically hushed, lull-your-kid-to-sleep rhyming tale replete with cute animals settling down. It quickly turns into a vehicle for the author’s witty commentaries on less sedate nighttime doings—nocturnal creatures getting up to busy hijinks in the night. Raccoons raid trash cans, skunks tiptoe through the night, and crickets sing their hearts out. The author interrupts the verse to comment on what’s going on—that skunk is probably just making her way to bed, and those crickets are singing lullabies before going to sleep…right? Near the end, she imagines what several critters might get up to at night: Perhaps the bats don fancy clothes, and the fox prepares a lavish dinner. But who knows? Most of us are snoozing, so we don’t really know, do we? This isn’t your ordinary sleepy-time picture book, but it’s fun and may help kids relate to and dream about other sleepers. The contrast between the factual and fanciful material may confuse some readers, though. Grown-ups, beware: If youngsters imagine exciting adventures occurring while they’re supposed to be falling asleep, uh-oh…The illustrations, rendered in acrylic gouache, watercolor, and colored pencil and adjusted digitally, are delightful.

Captivating musings on what happens when we drift off for the night.