Once Upon a Time, the End (Asleep in 60 Seconds)

K-Gr 2 -Here's a fresh approach to fractured fairy tales: take one small child's insatiable demand for -Just one more story - and add a sleepy parent's wish to get the bedtime ritual over with as quickly as possible. The result is this collection of eight condensed folktales. For example, -Goldilocks and the Bears - begins, -There were some bears; /It doesn't really matter how many./There was a bunch./Let's get to the point: - and ends, -When the bears came back, /They found her asleep./She woke up, screamed, and ran home/So she could sleep in her own bed./Just like you. - A few nursery rhymes ( -Hickory, dickory, dock, /A mouse ran up the clock./The clock struck eight./Oh, my, it's late!/So the mouse went straight to bed -) and jokes round out the book. Blitt's ink-and-watercolor illustrations are amusing, with fine lines and soothing colors underscoring the comedy in the characters and situations. The cover shows an intensely alert toddler on the lap of a sleeping father, surrounded by several dozing characters (Goliath sucking his thumb, for example, and Red Riding Hood conked out next to the wolf dressed as Grandma). The sometimes sly, sometimes outrageous, sometimes simply silly humor will go over the heads of most preschoolers, but it's right on target for their older siblings (and tired parents, of course)." -Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL" Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Children revel in getting the upper hand on frustrated, exhausted adults. That's the concept behind this group of nearly a dozen desperately abbreviated bedtime stories (e.g., "The Two Little Pigs") and other not-so-subtly slumber-themed diversions (such as this riddle: "Why did the chicken cross the road? To go to sleep"). The stories are bracketed by visits to a boy's bedroom where a father, still dressed in work clothes, tries to satisfy his child's request for yet another story by "cutting/ Little words here and there/ So the stories would go faster, / .../ And everyone could live happily every after./ The end." But the effect of this book will undoubtedly be far from soporific. Kids may well be reduced to giggling fits by the cumulative effect of newcomer Kloske's silly shorthand versions of old favorites. A minimalist, rhyming version of Red Riding Hood wraps up with the heroic woodsman saying, "Wow, I'm really tired, how about you?"; a familiar nursery rhyme about the old lady who lived in a shoe concludes, "When kids wouldn't go to bed, / She sold them to the zoo." "New Yorker" cartoonist Blitt's watercolor-and-ink drawings exude a brittle sense of humor that's right in sync with the text's sad-sack perspective; at the same time, the artist's elegant ink line offers a visual foil to the storyteller's rising sense of hopelessness. But while the core joke here is on parents everywhere, chances are they'll be laughing too -after all, it's funny because it's true. Ages 4-8. "(Oct.)" Copyright 2005 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

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