Too Small for my Big Bed

Author: Amber Stewar and Layn Marlow

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Age range: 2- 5 yrs

Overview

Piper is a very active little tiger cub who loves jumping and climbing all day long. Every day, with Mommy tiger there to encourage him, Piper learns to do something new--and do it all by himself. But when bedtime arrives, Piper dislikes the dark night, and he especially dislikes sleeping all alone in his bed. He wakes up in the middle of each night, and feeling all alone, he goes to Mommy so he can sleep cuddled up in her bed. How can Mommy tiger help him overcome his fear so that he can sleep alone the whole night through? Both parents and toddlers will recognize an all too familiar situation--and how to solve it--as Mom or Dad reads this story aloud to their little boy or girl. Attractive color illustrations on every page.

Editorial Review

Stewart tenders a piece of puff pastry that wishes nothing more than to send its readers to slumberland. This book, with its handsome artwork but thin-as-gruel text, may find its readers snug asleep in bed, but purely unintentionally. The bald intent here is to instruct: If you sense your mother's nearness when you wake late in the dark of night, you will feel her loving protectiveness, close your eyes and find your way back to sleep. To be kind, if your child is a committed spiritualist or a Zen adept, this may work, but most adult readers will find themselves muttering, "As if." The mother and cub spend the day flexing the cub's newfound abilities--jumping in the grass, climbing the rocks--and the mother, in the refrain, reminds the cub that he is doing it "all by yourself": the unsubtle hint that he is not sleeping by himself yet, is he? These reminders give way to the mystical. "If you keep your eyes closed, and I am quieter than the smallest cricket," asks Mommy, "then how do you know I am near?" Eventually it works for the cub, though that grassland still looks mighty dark and deep. The illustrations, however, are an eyeful: mixed-media confections that catch the smoky-purple hills and tawny grasslands where these tigers roam (though, in reality, most tigers prefer the Asian forest). A didactic pipe dream.