While I've recently had weeding on my mind, there are so many slightly older titles that are just wonderful and worth keeping... they come into print, and just as quickly it seems, disappear from your local bookstore. Here's a book that is not out of print, not yet, but nonetheless has been very tough for me track down.
In an upside-down twist on traditional bedtime stories, Wake-Up Kisses tells of the waking activities of many nocturnal creatures. If one could judge a book by it’s cover, this book has a brighter cover than most bedtime storybooks, with a subtle heart shape made of leaves and ringed by the nighttime animals discussed within. The colored pastel and charcoal drawings are done on restful dark hued backgrounds, causing the white chalk highlights to jump off of the page. The crescent moon plays a familiar motif as it makes it’s appearance throughout the story, gently lighting the opossum, owls, bats and other nighttime animals busy “day.” With perhaps a sentence or two of text on each page, this story is clearly meant to be read slowly and savored as a nighttime before bed treat for parents and children. The rhyming text is also geared to appeal to younger listeners. Without a real narrative plot, the book takes us through some of the ordinary routines of animals, portraying a comforting, loving parent-child relation in every case. With it’s constant exhortations of “Everyone up,” “Rise and shine,” “Let’s get busy doing things” and “Open your eyes” among others, this book just may hoodwink some small children straight to dreamland.
