The Sleepy Men - Hardcover

PreSchool-K-A previously unpublished story by the author of Goodnight Moon. This one, too, is about going to sleep, with the comparison of large and small added in, a typical trait of Brown's other titles for children. Here, two sleepy men, one big, one little, go to bed. The big sleepy man tells a story, while the little sleepy man, depicted as a child, follows his own dream into outer space and falls asleep. There is more complexity to Rayevsky's acrylic-and-ink pictures than the story deserves. Rather than the two men being opposites, as Brown clearly set up in her narrative, they are complements, clearly a mature man in a bowler and glasses, and a younger red-head. There is much attention to their costumes, with strange boutonnieres and odd, flappy collars to their suits. Are these characters father and son? What exactly is the relationship? And, even more complicated, what is the relationship between the older man's story about the Man in the Moon's abundant youthful appetite, and the younger man's dream about cosmic wanderings? The idea of space travel, complicated by an odd meteorite suspended on the front cover, makes clear that perhaps Brown's story was not published during her lifetime because it is not as good as her others; on the other hand, this illustrator does not shore up the effort at all.
Ruth K. MacDonald, Bay Path College, Longmeadow, MA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Another from Brown's canon of bedtime books, full of lulling cadences and rhythms. A big sleepy man and a little sleepy man get ready to hit the hay--they yawn and stretch and crawl under their covers. After ``the big sleepy man put his head on the pillow and the little sleepy man put his head on the pillow. And the big sleepy man sang a big sleepy song and the little sleepy man sang a little sleepy song,'' the big sleepy man tells his little cohort a story. It concerns the man on the moon--once a little man who dashed about and dined and also went to bed--and the story sets the little sleepy man into a dreamy drift and so, to sleep. Well-paced repetitions are broken up by longer narrative sequences, lyrically served by Rayevsky's robust illustrations--acrylic paintings with the feel of colorful, detailed woodcuts. They make pleasing counterpoints to a classically framed lullaby. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.