How Sleep Found Tabitha

July 22, 2002
PreS-K-Appealing artwork enhances this simple story of a child who is put to bed but is not ready to fall asleep. Tabitha imagines that seven of her toy animals become real and ask that she settle down for the night with each of them in turn. Through her visualizations of them preparing for sleep, readers are briefly introduced to their habitats and sleep habits. The girl rejects each creature's offer to sleep in its nest, lily pad, burrow, etc., for various reasons, including cold, damp, or hard "beds." It is the family cat, quietly coming to curl up in her bed, that finally enables Tabitha to fall asleep. The predominantly lavender, blue, and green watercolors reveal a little girl's room at bedtime, strewn with her stuffed animals and various articles of clothing. From the first image of Tabitha, with her large, brown eyes looking very much awake, to the last image of her at slumber, the illustrations reveal a self-confident child who understands that comfort is a warm cat, gently purring under the covers.-Maryann H. Owen, Racine Public Library, WI

Copyright 2002 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2002
PreS.-K. Dreamy, soft watercolors and simple, poetic words take a classic sleepy-time rhyme to new places. Tabitha looks for sleep, but her eyes, "round as headlights," roam the room. She hears the whale calling her to sleep from the deep, blue sea, but she stays awake. The horse calls and she copies him, getting up on all fours. The snake whispers ("Come slither to sleep where it's dark and deep") and the seal beckons her to come sleep in the sea spray. She makes a cave in the blankets like a rabbit, but sleep only comes when her own soft, gray cat snuggles up with her. The child's imaginative play is beautifully expressed in the combination of the wild and the cozy, and Lott's charming, double-spread paintings, with lots of blue and green, show the child warm in bed and also connected with the amazing animals in the sky, sea, and on the earth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)