Max & Milo Go to Sleep!

December 10, 2012
Parents Heather and Ethan Long—she in her debut and he the creator of recent picture books including Soup for One and Pig Has a Plan—fictionalize the repartee between their real-life sons in this jittery bedtime story. Brightly lit comics panels, packed with voice-balloon dialogue and restless activity, present two young beavers in their PJs. Max, with his frown and heavy eyelids, looks exhausted, but Milo cannot settle down. The brothers could be twins, with their matching bedroom furniture, yet their personalities differ. To get the picture, readers need only compare Milo’s unkempt side of the bedroom, strewn with books and paper airplanes, to Max’s tidy space (kept separate by the page gutter), which is tastefully decorated with a soccer poster and diploma. High-energy Milo repeatedly wakes his drowsy brother and asks for help in getting to sleep, and sedate Max predictably ends up the one with insomnia at the conclusion. This classic odd-couple tale, built around the comedic interplay between Milo’s inability to focus and put-upon Max’s stability, is ripe for sequels. Ages 4–8.

November 15, 2012
Brothers Max and Milo have totally different approaches to bedtime. Neat Max is calm and ready to sleep. Messy Milo is too energetic and impatient to fall asleep easily. He wakes Max repeatedly for helpful suggestions, greeting each one with a variation of "good idea, Max." Then he proceeds to make things worse. "Why don't you read a book?" is followed by a noisy search for the right title. When the lamp won't work, Max is awakened again and suggests a flashlight. Milo rigs it in a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption and proceeds to read his book amid loud bursts of laughter. And so it goes. Even with the whirring of a fan and the slurping of water, still Milo can't sleep. And of course, neither can Max. When he finally loses his temper, it falls on deaf ears--for Milo is sound asleep and Max is left wide awake in a delightfully predictable conclusion. The tale is told visually within cartoon panels of varying sizes and configurations with balloons of brief, simply stated dialogue. The cartoon elements are brightly colored and heavily outlined in black on a purple background. By the way, Max and Milo are totally goofy, big-eyed, orange beavers. Young readers will surely recognize the trials of sibling relationships in the exaggerated comical situations. Laugh-out-loud fun. (Picture book. 4-8)

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January 1, 2013

PreS-1-Two beavers try to get some sleep in this cartoon-style picture book. Max is quite ready to hit the hay, but Milo is wide awake. When counting sheep doesn't work, he wakes his brother to ask for advice. Max suggests that Milo read a book, but the lamp is broken. The pattern repeats, with Max advising Milo on how to deal with one dilemma after another. Finally, Milo wears himself out but, predictably, now Max can't get back to sleep. The bright digital artwork is arranged in episodic panels, and the text consists of dialogue in word balloons. The kid-friendly pictures of cute critters will appeal to young children. No new ground is broken here, but this would be a pleasant addition to collections in need of simple bedtime books.-Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT

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