Good Night, Feet

PreSchool-- A bedtime read-aloud that features a series of children (both genders and a variety of ethnic groups are represented) saying good night to various parts of their bodies. The kids speak in verse as they thank their ears, hands, feet, mouths, and heads for their service during the day, and ask them to be still so their bodies can rest. Smith's illustrations have a Southwestern ambiance. Objects in the paintings are tilted off-balance and are formed with lazy, curved lines to create a dreamlike atmosphere. The soft colors are pretty and soothing as they fill in details of the universal scenes--all safe, tender, familiar. Each bedroom is suggested simply by the child in bed, mothers (no dads do the tucking-in here), windows, and sometimes another object or two. Pale, variegated washes are the background for each scene and its accompanying white-lettered text. The verse is facile, although occasionally forced. The stilted rhymes have a crippling effect on the illustrations, casting a childish light on them, whereas they really deserve to be accepted as sweetly naive. Even so, this will be requested by many sleepy preschoolers en route to the Land of Nod; its atmosphere of warmth, quiet, and safety will be appreciated by their parents, too.
- Liza Bliss, Leominster Public Library, MA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Good night, feet. / You've worked hard today. / I need you, feet, to run and play," begins the hushed, rhyming text of this soothing bedtime read-aloud. On successive spreads of Morgenstern's first book, different children bid goodnight to other parts of the body as well--head, hands, mouth, ears and eyes. In her stylized, at times dreamlike pictures, Smith uses a palette of unusually luminescent colors. Subtle variations distinguish each scene: the beds span a range of styles and windows open onto a desert, farm, ocean or garden scene. At the book's close, a mother pulls down the window shades next to her drowsy daughter as the verse advises the eyes "to start to pull your shades down too." By this time, the eyes of sleepy listeners are likely to be closing--most contentedly. Ages 2-6.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.