THE DAY THE SUN DID NOT RISE AND SHINE

Will the morning never come?

After his customary all-night flight, Owl returns home quite drowsy; in fact, he’s so sleepy that he takes a wrong turn and ends up in an attic instead of his nest. (This is furnished with a tiny grandfather clock and canopy bed in the illustration, which makes it quite clear how he goes wrong). When he wakes up, he's alarmed to find that it's still dark. What's more, "the forest" is full of weird things, like a toy train and an old couch and a humongous grandfather clock. Did the sun forget to wake up? He looks everywhere and finally finds it. (The illustrations show that it’s actually a round mirror in the shape of the sun, with carved rays for a frame.) He tries, without success, to wake it up, pushing “the world” (a globe) over to it and turning the attic light on to help it remember its job. Of course, while all this is happening, time is passing, and as if by magic, the sun finally appears. "Hooray!" It's been a long night. Owl settles into his tree-branch bed for a well-deserved sleep. Enzerink's premise is clever, though the story's end is a bit of a letdown after Owl’s bumbling. The fun is in Rauwerda's painterly illustrations; warm and beautifully composed, they teem with child-friendly details that clue readers in to Owl’s mistake.

This Dutch import offers a sweet and funny twist on the bedtime book.