Baby Bedtime
What's Baby Bedtime About
Publisher Summary
Join these adorable elephants for a lyrical good night routine in this tender bedtime tale from the bestselling author of Time for Bed and Hello Baby! After all the kissing, and the hugging, and the rocking, and the snuggling, there at last comes a time for—sleeping. From beloved, bestselling picture book author Mem Fox, this cozy, dreamy bedtime book is a soothing lullaby that’s just right for lulling little ones to sleep.
What Kind of Book is Baby Bedtime
Trusted Reviews & Ratings
This soothing, rhyming bedtime book is sweet and cozy, and the illustrations make you feel calm. The text is pretty light, so I think I’d prefer this in a board book format, but it’s a cute bedtime book, all the same.
Book Lists That Include Baby Bedtime
Who Wrote Baby Bedtime
Mem Fox is the author of many acclaimed books, including Possum Magic, Koala Lou, Time for Bed, and, for adults, Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever. She lives in Adelaide, Australia.
Who Illustrated Baby Bedtime
Emma Quay is an illustrator and writer of many award-winning picture books; her memorable characters for ‘Rudie Nudie’, ‘Baby Bedtime’, ‘Shrieking Violet’, ‘Bear and Chook’, ‘Good Night, Me’ and ‘Scarlett, Starlet’ are favourites on children’s bookshelves all over Australia. Her brand-new title for very young children, ‘My Sunbeam Baby’ has just been released.
Emma grew up in the English countryside, and has wanted to illustrate children’s books for as long as she can remember. She works from a studio in her home and sometimes feels like she barely leaves it, but her illustrative work is held in collections around the world, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
In my picture books, I set out to celebrate the beauty in small, ordinary, everyday moments. My books aren’t autobiographical, and yet they are dotted with tiny fragments from my life. I wonder if the reason they seem to resonate with people is because they are full of my family — I hope these personal touches give the stories and the illustrations an authenticity at their heart.
What Has Mem Fox Said About Baby Bedtime
What Has Emma Quay Said About Baby Bedtime
Trivia to Know About Baby Bedtime
What made you want to illustrate this picture book?
I first read the text for ‘Baby Bedtime’ in September 2011. My agent sent it to me without mentioning the author’s name. I knew immediately it was written by Mem Fox, and as soon as I started to read her words I began to see images in my head. I just had to bring them to life on paper!
By Emma Quay (illustrator)
Are there any details of Baby Bedtime that you particularly love that readers should watch for?
In my illustrations, I wanted to show positive images of books being a part of everyday life. While a parent and child are sharing this picture book, they’ll see the elephant characters in the book also enjoying a bedtime story together. At the beginning of the book, there is a pile of books on the coffee table in the sitting room, and I also left a paperback on the rattan chair, to which the parent elephant will return once the baby has settled. I see it as my own gentle kind of pro-reading propaganda!
By Emma Quay (illustrator)
What made you choose to use elephant characters in your illustrations for ‘Baby Bedtime’?
I loved the fact that if I painted purple elephants, I wasn’t being specific about whom my characters were representing — this could be any parent and child. And also… there are so many more ways to hug, with a trunk!
By Emma Quay (illustrator)
Can you tell us how you made the illustrations look so soft and textured?
I filled the images with the weave of linen, hessian and baskets, the patterns of printed fabric, lace, embroidery, knitting and crochet. A young child’s world is a very tactile place, and his or her experience of it is as much about touch as it is about sight and sound. I wanted to reflect this in my images, despite their being destined to be printed onto the essentially smooth and two-dimensional pages of a picture book. I hoped to convey a sense of softness, cosiness, warmth and envelopment through my choice of colours and shapes, the qualities of the drawn lines and the textured surfaces.
By Emma Quay (illustrator)
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Book Details
- ISBN:
- 9781481420976
- Publication Date:
- August 26, 2014
- Library of Congress Number (LCCN):
- 2013045559
- ASIN/ISBN 10:
- 1481420976
- Lexile® Level:
- AD410L