Sleep, My Bunny

A swirling night sky contrasts with the cozy indoors in this original lullaby from the creator of beloved siblings Max and Ruby. The spare text has an appropriately lulling rhythm as it moves from poetic whimsy (“The morning is hiding behind the next cloud”) to a final invocation (“May the noises of evening be gentle and airy./ Let nothing be scary and nothing be loud).” The illustrations provide the greatest delights in scenes that follow a preschooler in a snug country house through dinner, bath, stories and music, and a final tuck-in, all with the help of two loving caregivers. Wells’s genius is in conveying preschoolers’ emotions and family moments with artful accuracy, and in these pages, the small bunny’s enthusiasms and the family’s tender, joyful bonds are irresistibly clear. Small spot drawings, linked to either words in the text or objects in the accompanying illustrations, provide an added opportunity for a seek-and-find game, while the dark, moonlit outdoors, viewed through each interior scene’s windows and rendered in Van Gogh–like swirls of dense, contrasting color, adds another exciting dimension to this reassuring gift to sleepy bunnies everywhere. Ages 2–5. [em](Nov.) [/em]