I’m Still Up!

A child delights in being “up” in this visually spare nighttime board book. As a yellow sun half-dips below the bottom of the opening page (“The sun is down”), a light-brown-skinned child, whose hair visually echoes the sun’s rays, peeks up from the facing page (“but I am up”). Against a progressively darkening blue backdrop, the young figure remarks that, though “The moon is up,// like me,” everyone else—pets and parents both—is “sleepy,” all the while insisting “but not me” with fading grin, drooping eyelids, and lowering head, until a yawn portends the inevitable conclusion. Portis’s spongy illustrations capture a child’s transition to sleep with a pleasing simplicity that’s easily graspable by those developing first slumber-time routines. Publishing simultaneously: I’m Up! Ages up to 3. (Jan.)