SLEEP TIGHT, LITTLE MOUSE

In this diminutive charmer, a restless mouseling tells his mama that he’d rather sleep in a bird’s nest, in a pile of puppies, a kangaroo’s pouch, with bats in a cave, or with a polar bear mama. His own mama, unperturbed, offers canny objections—“ ‘Yummy,’ said Mama, ‘a delicious worm breakfast’ ”—for a while, but soon the little mouse is coming up with difficulties on his own, and eventually reaches the foreordained conclusion that his own grassy bed is best. Morgan gives the mouse child a tiny plush mouse toy, but he himself looks round and plush, as does his mama, and most of the gently smiling creatures his imagination conjures up. Aside from the misleading suggestion that polar bears hibernate, this cozy alternative to Kate Banks’s Spider Spider (1996), Margaret Wise Brown’s Runaway Bunny (1942), and similar parent/child dialogues is a good choice for bedtime sharing with any pajama-clad mousekin. (Picture book. 4-6)