Night Wishes

Featuring 14 persona poems, this anthology features 10 poets anthropomorphizing items that can be found in the bedroom—“Cat” by Eileen Spinelli, “Teddy Bear” by volume editor Hopkins, and “Night-light” by Renée M. LaTulippe—and delivering goodnight wishes from its perspective. Three more poets—Nikki Grimes, Deborah Ruddell, and Darren Sardelli—offer lines from “Angel,” “Stars,” and “Moon,” respectively. While the poems vary in rhyme scheme, they share a gentle, whimsical tone (“I’ll dream of sunlit fisheries/ with daring things to do./ You’ll dream of starry wisheries/ where sweetest dreams come true,” reads Spinelli’s “Cat”). Corace’s soft illustrations feature a brown-skinned child with a mass of dark hair amid cheerily colored dreamscapes: in one scene, a cat is a galaxy swimming along giant green fish, while the child is garbed in astronaut attire. An imaginative anthology sure to send readers straight to sweet dreams. Ages 4–8. [em](Sept.) [/em]