Sleep tight, Anna Banana!
Dominique Roques, illustrated Alexis Dormal
First Second
June 2014
Anna Banana’s stuffed animal friends are tired after a long day and are just ready to sleep. But Anna isn’t ready yet, she just wants to finish up her book. And when they try to leave to go elsewhere to sleep, Anna doesn’t let them. But when she’s finally ready to go to sleep the stuffed animals have their revenge and give Anna taste of her own medicine. When all is said and done, will anyone learn a lesson?
This is a short, but fun children’s book with some good lessons in it for young readers and beautiful illustrations. The writing is superb, as Anna Banana is a vivacious, vibrant young kid that almost anyone can relate to. But more importantly, to me at least, is that Anna isn’t staying up to watch TV or play video games. She’s staying up to read a book! And while I encourage people to do that (it is quite awesome), Anna isn’t being mindful of her friends wishes to go to sleep! Anna and her friends both learn something in this tale.
The illustrations are bright, cheerful, and will make readers you and old laugh out loud. The soft, fuzzy, watercolors are just the thing to look at before going to sleep. The stuffed animals all appear fuzzy and the use of gorgeous soft blues capture the essence of a night time scene, and the soft yellows capture the gentle glow of a lamp being turned on. Young readers (and old) will love looking at the illustrations of Anna and her friends.
Who among us didn’t imagine that our stuffed animals could talk to us? This is the perfect book to help young readers understand that their our consequences for the things we do that can affect others around us. I’d recommend this book highly to folks with kids under 5 and as a great book for storytime. I give the book 4 out of 5 stars. And as an additional note, a second book in the Anna Banana series is coming out next year from First Second!
*One last note, is that the paper this book is printed on is extremely thin and may not stand up to a lot of wear and tear. This is First Second’s first foray into the picture book realm and the next book, Julia’s House for Lost Creatures, is printed on better stock. Just something to take into consideration.*
ARC provided by Gina at First Second
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