A turning of the tables and charming artwork set this warm and funny bedtime book apart from its kin.
In the beginning, the tale seems familiar, both to the narrator and to readers--but don't let that fool you. "My dad is big and strong, but every night it's the same old story," says a child barely visible in the lower right-hand corner of the opening spread, sporting a cornflower-blue crewneck. The boy's father towers over him, leaning unsteadily over the book's gutter in a white collared shirt, black tie and wool hat. The background resembles a brown-paper grocery bag, with a superimposed photograph of a Victorian-era padded chair, and a drawn-in hanging plant, coffee cup and a clock that says 9:00. "I don't' want to go to bed!" reads a message taped onto the wall.
We might assume that's the boy's sentiment, but we would be wrong. "At first, I try to be nice: 'Dad, I say, it's already quite late.' " Di Giacomo's minimalist art depicts a disembodied big toothy smile, the essence of "nice." The smile seems to flutter to the ground in a series of iterations, as it fades to gray, and later just a dark hollow hint of a grin, while a clock on the table shows 9:45.
Father swaps roles and adopts a childish rant: "No no no, I won't go to sleep!" A brown pooch lifts its forepaws in a "what gives?" sort of shrug as Dad does a handstand under a clothesline draped with skivvies. The boy's promise of a story brings Dad down from the chandelier where he hangs by one foot, and as the man begs for "One more story pleeease" on bended knees, readers will erupt in giggles as Dad holds his son captive, high in the air, then lays prostrate on the floor. (The dog, too, seems to keel over on its back in exhaustion.) Saudo gets the inflections just right in her parent-child turnabout, and Di Giacomo exploits the situation's comic possibilities. When Dad appears in the boy's bedroom to ask, "Son, can I sleep in here with you?," it's with hat in hand. The limited palette of gray teals, warm browns and bare whites play up the nighttime contrasts and the father's vulnerability: children discover that even big, strong dads can be afraid of the dark. A guaranteed bedtime winner. --Jennifer M. Brown
Shelf Talker: This bedtime book shakes up the formula when a big strong Dad forestalls his son's pleas to hit the hay.