My Dad Is Big and Strong, But . . . (review)

This French import takes an array of typical bedtime shenanigans and turns them upside down, so that instead of a parent working tirelessly to get a child to settle down for the night, a child is struggling with trying to get his father to go to sleep. When his son tries to get him to go to bed, Dad pulls all the usual tricks, first simply resisting bedtime, then running wildly around the house, then requesting a story, then one more story, then objecting when the child turns out the lights . . . and that is where the story ends. There's no real plot here, just a playful concept stretched out to picture book length, and while the child's imitation of the parent is pitch perfect, much of the humor is aimed at the adults reading the book aloud than at the children listening ("I tell myself: 'Hang on, we're almost there'"). While the concept falls short, the illustrations, brown paper textured with colored pencil, accented with collage elements, are effectively quirky and vivid. The figures are childlike pencil drawings with only touches of shading, and their surroundings alternate from sparely understated (some images seem almost to be erased from the page) to ornately detailed photographic elements. Rosenthal's Bedtime for Mommy (BCCB 4/10) is a more kid-effective treatment of the same story, but audiences will still find the notion of a parent refusing to go to bed giggle-worthy and may even seek to involve the family in playing out the joke.