cover image Sleep Tight, Anna Banana!

Sleep Tight, Anna Banana!

Dominique Roques, trans. from the French by Mark Siegel, illus. by Alexis Dormal. First Second, $15.99 (28p) ISBN 978-1-62672-019-0

Tucked contentedly into bed with her book and surrounded by half a dozen stuffed animals, Anna Banana may look like a mild-mannered sweetheart, but that’s not entirely the case. Just ask those stuffed animals. “Anna Banana! We’re sleepy!” protests teddy bear Grizzler. “Well, just close your eyes!” she responds. One by one, the animals try to find somewhere dark and not punctuated by Anna’s loud laughter to sleep, but she’s not letting anyone leave. “Anna likes to have ALL her stuffed animals around her,” writes French author Roques as Dormal shows Anna snagging Foxface by his tail and yanking Fuzzball away from the lamp he tries to turn off. Eventually, Anna gets tired, and that’s when her now-surly toys decide to teach her a lesson that boils down to “turnabout is fair play”—accordions, couples dancing, and footraces all factor in. It’s a fairly straightforward story about being considerate of others (even if they’re filled with stuffing), but the mischievous physical comedy that Dormal brings to his loosely scrawled cartoons keeps it from ever feeling didactic or dull. Ages 3–7. [em](June) [/em]