An After Bedtime Story
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Little Nina will not go to bed. Not when the adults are having so much fun in the other room without her! Before her exasperated parents can catch up, Nina escapes her bedroom and races through the house, sampling cakes and just generally stirring up trouble. With Nina on the loose, a cordial family party becomes a wild good time, as her aunts and uncles join in the riotous fun. Finally it’s time for the guests to leave, and it is bedtime at last—not just for Nina, but for the entire exhausted family.
Illustrated with stylishly appealing three-color art, this is a loving, funny portrait of family life—and of what bedtime is often really like.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Not only is Nina not asleep; she's ready to join the party, emerging from her bedroom in her tiara, frilly skirt, and not much else, in time to greet her parents' guests: "Give Aunt Ruth a kiss goodnight / then back to bed you go, all right?" Nina grabs an iced cupcake then, emboldened, clowns for the assembly and tries bathing her doll in the punch bowl ("Get down, young lady! That's not how we act./ You're going to bed this instant, and that's a fact"). No one hears. Instead, the guests join the fun, crawling around on their hands and knees; walk-ons by Nina's toddler brother and the family bulldog add more laughs. In contrast to the mayhem, there's something classic, even elegant about Tsarfati's spreads, which combine the poise of Greek urn paintings with the everyday chaos of life with kids. Though the translated verse can be clunky and some may object to Nina's self-indulgent anarchy, Smith and Tsarfati tap into a rich seam of sleepless parent humor. Clearly, as this Israeli duo proves, limelight-hogging children are an international phenomenon. Ages 5 7.
