Sleepover at Gramma's House (review)

Whee! It's time for an overnight visit to Gramma's house, which is one of the narrator's favorite ("Goodie goodie goodie") things. Once at Gramma's, it's a round of playful delights, from running through paper taped over the doorway, to having a festive tea party complete with party hats for all, including the dog, to some quickie reverse-role bedtime stories. While there's pleasure enough just in those entertaining components, the real charm here lies in Joosse's poetic style. The text ebulliently romps along with nimbly structured repetition and musical soundplay ("and I'm bouncing bouncing bouncing/ and I'm flipping off my shoesies/ and I'm rolling down my socksies/ and I'm sighing/ and I'm singing"), words tumbling over themselves like eager puppies, only to pause in dramatic rapture with the repeated refrain "Oh. We love each other so." It's a joyous, delicious readaloud, awash in celebratory gaiety, that hearkens back to the modernism of Margaret Wise Brown in its kid-friendly revelry with the language itself. Sturdy, perky, and sweet, the orderly illustrations, composed in ink, watercolor and acrylic, balance their matter-of-fact style with invitingly imaginative details. The featured family is an elephant clan, and their world is filled with amusing multispecies passersby, such as a monkey riding an ostrich down the city streets or a bowler-hatted duck walking staunchly down a country lane (the rural birds generally have a charming tendency toward formality in dress). Grandmas will flock to this one with their adoring grandkids in tow.