In a Blue Room (review)

It may be bedtime, but Alice is still wide awake—and complaining: "I can only sleep in a blue room. . . . Blue is my favorite." Her mother brings her fragrant flowers, and hot tea, and a warm quilt, each of which Alice initially rejects for non-blueness; when Mama wisely encourages her offspring to try nonetheless, Alice is soothed and made drowsy by the scent, taste, and touch of the non-blue elements. Finally, just as Alice begins to nod off, Mama douses the light, and the moonlight illuminates the room and transforms everything in it into blueness. The conceptual twist of the not-blue blue room will initially get audiences caviling, but readers-aloud can follow Mama's lead and encourage the listeners to rethink their perceptions; once they're ready for the twist, they'll find the notions of sensual expansion and visual subjectivity entrancing. The quiet, present-tense text recalls that of Raschka's Can't Sleep (BCCB 10/95), and the gently lilting rhythm is lullingly suitable for its bedtime theme. The art, watercolors touched with gouache, sports a fluid yet rumply line that's authentically homey. Tusa makes an interesting choice in severely limiting the blue in Alice's bedroom prior to the big switcheroo (the blue that does appear is cool and slate-toned), which is a little unlikely for such a blue-besotted kid, but it makes the shift to blue moonlight dramatic and immediate; her closing compositions, with the focus drawing farther and farther away from Alice's bedroom and into the sky, wind things down nicely and parallel the gradual drift away from consciousness of falling asleep. Unlike many bedtime books, this actually has a process that weary parents could try emulating with their own sleep-resistant tykes, and listeners may be intrigued enough by the novel view of moonlight to follow Alice into blue-bathed sleep.