As the sun sets, a father puts his child to bed. Weaving images of mice, of birds, and of polar bears, he tells her that sleep nibbles the last crumb of day; sleep gathers her beneath its feathery wings; and that sleep holds her tight in the furry dark. And as the images of sleep grow larger and larger, the father hopes that sleep will come to his child very soon. In this glorious companion to If You Were Born a Kitten, Marion Dane Bauer and JoEllen McAllister Stammen have created a classic lullaby, as warm and loving as any child and parent at bedtime. PreSchool-Grade 1 The droopy-eared, yawning basset hound on the front cover captures a universal bedtime experience: an exhausted parent trying to lull a wide-awake youngster to slumber. The voice is actually a father's (not pictured until the end, nodding off in a rocking chair), and the lullaby has the flavor of a spontaneous song; it contains some quirky ideas, delightful language, and tranquil repetition. Sleep is first suggested by a small spider spinning a cradle web, then by a mouse who "nibbles the last crumbs of day." As the story continues, the animals increase in size, culminating with a polar bear and cubs, whose cuddling cannot be contained on a double-page spread. While the father dozes, daughter's eyes are open, gazing at the toy polar bear on her nightstand. Ultimately, she succumbs, dreaming of flights of fancy on the polar bear's back. Stammen's pastels on dark gray paper and the oversized format will draw attention and admiration in groups and on laps. The artist is quite adept at capturing the unique texture and character of each animal for an affectionate portrait. This is a welcome companion to the pair's If You Were Born a Kitten (S & S, 1997). Here, the tone is a bit more playful, the child a little older, but the warmth and security felt in the familial bond continue. Wendy Lukehart, Dauphin County Library, Harrisburg, PA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. The first attraction of this book is the basset hound yawning hugely on the jacket front, with her pup wide awake on the back. The second is the gentleness of the bedtime story. As night falls, a father helps his daughter fall asleep by describing, in lovely words and sweet images, what falling asleep is like. Moving from small to large creatures, he compares sleep to the actions of a spider, a mouse, a bird, a puppy, a lamb, and others: sleep is woolly like a lamb grazing softly around the bed; it's an impatient pony stamping, stirring up the dust; it wants to plunge like a whale into the depths. Graceful illustrations perfectly unite the verbal and visual components of the book, as in the touching echo of the jacket illustration that shows a father dropping off to sleep in the rocker, his little girl still wide awake. Shelley Townsend-Hudson Marion Dane Bauer is the author of many books for young readers, including the Newbery Honor book On My Honor and the Coretta Scott King Book Illustrator Award winner The Stuff of Stars . She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and can be reached at MarionDaneBauer.com.