Sleep Like a Tiger (review)

Bedtime is a known scourge of youthful fun, and the little girl in this picture book is having none of it. Her wise parents sidestep her protestation of not being sleepy (“They nodded their heads and said she didn’t have to go to sleep. But she had to put her pajamas on”), but once she’s in bed she starts a new delaying tactic, inquiring about sleeping habits in the animal kingdom. After exploring the sleep habits of bats, whales, and tigers, she’s inspired enough by their snoozes to fall asleep herself. While the story runs a little long, Logue effectively combines domesticity and lyricism, and the back-and-forth rhythm is tenderly soporific. Zagarenski (illustrator of the Caldecott Honor–winning Red Sings from Treetops, BCCB 3/09) creates a dreamworthy world in her full-page full-bleed illustrations, wherein petite, precise pencil lines contrast with rich grainy textures of paint on wood. Hues run to gently nocturnal aquas and creams that grow darker as sleep creeps in, and delicate elements such as stars, butterflies, and the girl’s toys (and a piece of print featuring Blake’s “Tyger, Tyger”) add sparkle and interest. Reality and fantasy swim comfortably together in both the domestic scenes and the imagined views of animals, and the visuals effectively evoke that twilight state where dream and reality are hard to differentiate. Sleep is a lot more inviting as a fantastical adventure, and animal-loving kids who’ve grown out of Fleming’s Sleepy, Oh So Sleepy (BCCB 9/10) will delight in the companionable wildlife.