Tone
Quiet
Illustration
Delicate
Subject
Bedtime
Boys
Boys' dreams
Imagination in children
Mothers and sons
Night
Sleep

This book is the perfect bedtime story that keeps kids engaged with its vivid illustrations of a little boy who rides his toy car and interacts with all of his toys asking them to play, but each of them turns him down and tells him that it is time for bed. This book is perfect for teaching kids the importance of sleep. ( )

Summary: A boy who is not ready to go to bed begins to imagine that he is with all of these other toys. But then even those toys become tired. And then the car that the boy rode on to the toys gets tired so he has to find his way back to his own bed. Response: When my son gets a little older, I look forward to reading this book to him before bed. Connection: Read Aloud with a discussion or writing assignment of how students go to sleep even if they are not tired. ( )

As she did in The Bear under the Stairs (Dial, 1993), Cooper takes a gentle, wry look at a child's imagination. At bedtime, a young boy takes a fantasy trip in his little red car into a land filled with his stuffed animals and toys?all of which are larger than life. In the well-patterned, repetitive text, the child asks each toy to play with him; each replies in its own way that it's not the right time for playing: 'Nighttime is for resting, not racing,' says the train. As the sun goes down, the youngster journeys through puffy clouds, past bedlike mounds, and under a moon hung by a string, and finally stands 'awake and alone, with the sleeping world around him.' But not to worry, for here comes his mother to scoop him up, carry him through a land of oversized bathroom fixtures and a giant tube of toothpaste, and put him in his warm, cozy bed. With their careful, creative details (the zipper in a toy tiger's stomach, wooden soldiers parading with toothbrushes, the toy train's cars filled with sleepy nursery-rhyme characters.

"Bedtime!" said Mother.
"NO!" said the baby.
The Baby wants to stay up all night, so he revs up his car and sets off on an adventure. Before long, he finds himself all alone in a sleepy land. But there is someone else who's not asleep...someone who loves the Baby very much.
A magical book whose soft yet sparkling artwork perfectly captures the twilight world of a small child, determined not to go to sleep.

Helen Cooper was born in London in 1963. She grew up in Cumbria and trained as a music teacher before turning her hand to children's books. She is now a highly successful full-time author illustrator and plays the piano just for fun. She lives in Highgate in North London with her author illustrator husband Ted Dewan. She is the only illustrator to win the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award for two consecutive books: The Baby Who Wouldn't Go to Bed, and Pumpkin Soup.