The Big Bed by Bunmi Laditan (review)

Fans of Laditan’s popular and hilarious Honest Toddler blog will be unsurprised to find that the protagonist of this picture book is a determined and opinionated toddler. The little girl sits her father down for a review of his behavior, acknowledging his value but pointing to one key area of nighttime dispute: “Who does Mommy belong to?” The tot is talking about space in the big parental bed, and she makes a comic case for her priority, with a brilliant solution of an adjacent camp bed for Daddy. Laditan’s arch and committed formality, punctuated with colloquialism for effective contrast, is supremely funny, and while the joke sometimes seems adult-aimed, kids will certainly snicker at Dad in his mother’s lap and guffaw at the extended pee joke. The digitally created art has a playful watercolor and pencil feel, with a design that makes humorous use of emphatic speech balloons and illustrative charts; our brown-skinned narrator has all the queenly self-possession of Lucy Van Pelt, her curly puffs giving her a jaunty authority that echoes the text. Parents and children alike will snicker at this new take on the bedtime book.