cover image IT'S TOO SOON!

IT'S TOO SOON!

Nigel McMullen, . . S&S, $14.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-689-84248-1

This bedtime tale may leave little ones yawning for the wrong reasons. As night falls, a rabbit named Anna builds a castle of blocks with her grandfather, who tells her it is bedtime. "But it's too soon!" she protests, "I'm not even sleepy—and besides, I always have to pick up my toys before bedtime." After the two tidy up, the pattern repeats, with Gramps calling for bedtime and Anna requesting milk and cookies, a bath and so forth. Finally, after reading a book the two start to nod off. No doubt children will recognize in this nighttime routine their own well-polished tactics of postponing the inevitable. They may also cotton to the idea of the young bunny calling all the shots, along with her predictable refrain of "it's too soon." But there's no veering off a rather straightforward march toward slumber. Unfortunately, McMullen's (Not Me! ) watercolors also take a face-value approach. The anthropomorphized Anna's home has a generic quality—plain wood furniture, a toaster on the counter, tame still-life paintings on the wall (although the ones featuring carrots and cabbage offer a grin). The golden-brown bunnies are cute enough, with sweet faces, floppy ears and plump haunches, but little distinguishes them from their ever-multiplying relations in other bedtime stories. Ages 2-5. (Feb.)