I Hate to Go to Bed!

Davis (Who Hops?) adds an irresistible spark to this tale of a crafty girl who tries to postpone her bedtime and catch her parents having a party. The narrator is sure she's missing out on something and repeatedly pretends to be sleepy and tractable so she can sneak up on them during their revelry--but alas, her parents are only reading the newspaper or flossing their teeth. Most of the humor is to be found in the bright, splashy cartoon acrylic artwork. When the girl is sent back to bed, her room transforms into a prison, its door striped with bars, and later into Siberia, where she bleakly shivers. When she gets up to fetch some water, then go to the bathroom, her unsympathetic parents ""knew what I was up to. Apparently the water trick had been done before""; in the illustration, kids in colorful pajamas circle the globe, each raising a glass. In another funny touch, the girl's fuzzy duck slippers are in cahoots with her: they snore ostentatiously to feign sleep, sport earmuffs when she is sent to Siberia and look fiercely uncowed and determined as she declares, ""It was time for Plan Z."" Young insomniacs are bound to identify with the lively, theatrical heroine as she hatches one plot after another to escape her bedtime exile. Ages 3-7. (Sept.)