No Go Sleep!

Everybody wants Baby to go to sleep, including the sun, the moon, the stars, the door, the animals, even baby's toys and shoes. Baby stubbornly insists "No go sleep!" before finally closing its eyes and, quickly, succumbing. The rhythmic text sounds like a game a clever parent would devise to lull a baby to sleep. The cartoon illustrations are classic Jules Feiffer.

Everybody wants the baby to close his eyes and go to sleep, not just the mommy and daddy, but the sun, the moon, the stars, the door, the animals just outside baby's window, the indoor animals, even baby's toys and shoes ("We're just too tired to walk another step. Good night"). Each one reassures Baby that all is well and that everything will still be in place when it awakens. But Baby stubbornly insists "No go sleep!" before finally closing its eyes and, quickly, succumbing. The text sounds like a game a clever parent would devise to lull a baby to sleep; structurally the narrative seems to have been inspired by Margaret Wise Brown in that it's composed of a long series of sentences each beginning with the word and. The sketchy lines of the cartoon illustrations are classic Jules Feiffer, showing the baby with eyes wide open and limbs stretched toward the world beyond the crib. Bedtime blues and greens predominate in the watercolor washes over the pen-and-ink lines, so even the pictures are joining in the go-to-sleep chorus. kathleen t. horning