cover image 'Night, America

'Night, America

Michael Montgomery. McGraw-Hill/Contemporary, $11.95 (21pp) ISBN 978-0-8092-4397-6

Two picture-book creators offer glowingly illustrated bedtime messages. In 'Night, Zoo , chimpanzees are wide-eyed over a bedtime story, but everybody else has drifted off: the woodchuck is asleep in a pillow-lined log, clutching his cookie; the herons are comfortably draped in a tree; the bears are heaped in a big, furry pile. The horizon widens in 'Night, America , with cowboys wrapped in blankets beside a covered wagon, the president in his bed and a sleepy astronaut and his gravity-defying teddy bear. The scant text encourages varied pacing; each page can be savored or hurried over as readers coast into dreamland. Ages 2-up. (Apr.)