While You Are Sleeping

Toddler-PreS—"While you are sleeping, the world turns…." Soothing text and jewel-tone screen prints present tranquil images of what goes on while a child sleeps. Despite initial references to a broader global setting, there is only one day scene, which feels somewhat out of place in the series of nighttime tableaux. More disappointing, humans are exclusively represented as white and dark-haired. The illustrations are accessible and lushly somnolent, but their literal following of the text prevents them from being truly extraordinary. These missed opportunities are frustrating, because the book comes so close to being something more. Phrases like birds with full moon eyes and the moon jumps over cows bring a lyrical quality to this bedtime book, but the text trails off without closure. Readers looking for a more global view of the world beyond the bedroom should turn to Clotilde Perrin's At the Same Moment, Around the World or Bob Graham's phenomenal How the Sun Got to Coco's House.