Back to sleep by Zoe Foster Blake
Illus. by Mike Jacobsen. Puffin, 2020. ISBN: 9781760897901.
(Age: 4+) With Dad being carried by his child on the front cover,
readers will know they are in for a hilarious tale about the
problems involved with getting children to bed. This perennial fly in
the family ointment is a cause for mayhem at the best of times even
in the calmest of families, with the most compliant children and
relaxed parents. It doesn't take much for things to go awry at
bedtime, and in this topsy turvy story, things are turned around and
its the child who is worn out trying to get his parents to go to
sleep.
Finn just nods off to sleep when he hears someone by his bed, asking
for a drink. He reminds Mum about her drink bottle but it has rolled
under her bed. Retrieving it and taking Mum back to bed means a kiss
and tuck in before she is settled. Then Dad wakes Finn after having
a bad dream. Finn calms his father but walking back to bed he
stumbles over the space station hurting his foot. He now insists on
being carried back to bed and will not sleep before a hug and a back
rub. Mum then comes into his room with a water problem. The water
bottle has spilled in her bed. In the middle of the night Finn must
rearrange her bed, pulling out a sleeping bag to sleep in. Unhappily
she goes back to sleep.
And on it goes. Poor Finn has a disastrously broken night, catering
for his parents, and all the while keeping very quiet, lest he wake
the baby, Clem, asleep in the cot in his room.
After a night of getting up to them, cuddling, back rubs, drinks, a
lie in and so on, he just gets back to sleep when the inevitable
happens and he is once again wide awake.
This uproariously funny back flip on the difficulties getting
children to bed is wonderfully supported with equally laugh out loud
illustrations creating the several rooms of Finn's night, and appear
real. The detail will draw in the readers, the looks on the faces of
Finn and the cat revealing the growing annoyance with the situation,
while his parents' faces reflect an expectation that Finn will
resolve all their needs.
Mike Jacobsen is a Canberra based illustrator and cartoonist who by
his own admission is a 'perpetual man-child' which explains his
ability to successfully see an adult dilemma from a child's
perspective. This will be a wonderful read aloud, read along and
read alone.
Themes: Family, Bed time, Relationships, Read aloud.
Fran Knight