cover image Are You Sleeping Little One?

Are You Sleeping Little One?

Hans-Christian Schmidt and Cynthia Vance, illus. by Andréas Nemet. Abbeville Kids, $6.95 (18p) ISBN 978-0-7892-1120-0

First published in Germany, this comforting bedtime rhyme is tailor-made to send kids off to bed. Vance’s loosely rhymed couplets are repetitive in their structure, giving the book a lilting, hypnotic quality: “Are you sleeping, little puppy,/ Dozing on paws soft and fluffy?/ Are you sleeping, little caterpillar,/ Crawling in a peapod after dinner?” Nemet’s anthropomorphized parent-child animal pairs snuggle together in the moonlight (well, except for the owls) in scenes filled with friendly, calming details. Ages 2–4. (Aug.)