Review by Booklist Review
Featuring vibrant illustrations, lively rhymes, and playful touches, this bedtime read is ideal for fans of veggie-character books. After an opening spread featuring a bird's-eye view of a rooftop garden, a gardener waters her plants at day's end. The visuals then zoom in, following a cheerful earthworm (wearing a baseball cap and one high-top sneaker) leaping to garden beds below. Then, in close-ups and cutaway views, the pictures follow the worm tunneling through the soil as animated vegetables, above and below ground, get ready for bed: Turnips tucked in tightly. / Potatoes closing eyes. / Tuckered-out tomatoes / humming lullabies. As the worm travels on, it passes even more vegetables turning in for the night. Eventually, the worm arrives home, and, under a now-moonlit sky, it's bedtime for all. OHora's bold acrylic illustrations, in bright colors with thick, black outlines, nicely incorporate recognizable shapes with cartoonish details, and though little ones might miss the wordplay, the lilting text lends well to sharing aloud. This artful take on familiar nighttime routines is an enjoyable blend of whimsical, cozy, and sweet.--Shelle Rosenfeld Copyright 2020 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This rhythmic journey through a rooftop vegetable garden settling down to sleep names the varied inhabitants of a well-stocked plot--"tossing, turning veggies/ need to get some rest." A smiling pink worm wearing a jaunty newsboy cap and a single tube sock and shoe acts as a friendly guide through each spread, hopping and slinking from a pea-pod tent through raised beds. Signature illustrations by OHora (Who Wet My Pants?) simply anthropomorphize the vegetables described in the text by Murray (Unicorn Day), which occasionally plays on vegetables' characteristics: the worm zooms through dirt while smiling potatoes close their eyes and corn "covers up its ears." As darkness descends, "every veggie's snoozing,/ beneath the moon so bright,/ for nothing's more exhausting/ than growing day and night." The produce-list narrative may be light, but the snuggled-in vegetables and sweet, lilting text offer an effectively snoozy bedtime rhyme. Ages 4--7. Author's agent: Brianne Johnson, Writers House. Illustrator's agent: Sean McCarthy, Sean McCarthy Literary Agency. (Mar.)
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Review by Horn Book Review
As the sun sets over a rooftop community garden, its time for the gardens vegetables to get some rest. Turnips tucked in tightly. / Potatoes closing eyes. / Tuckered-out tomatoes / humming lullabies. In OHoras sweet and funny acrylic art, all the veggies have endearing facial expressions (even the tiniest peas and baby carrots). The (intentional) sleepiness of the books action is balanced by the presence of a lively earthworm in a baseball cap who swoops through the color-saturated double-page spreads, athletically looping through tunnels and popping up occasionally to check out the dozing garden denizens. The childlike approach, appealing art, and relatable worm character are enough to connect story and audience, but at books end the text makes the connection even more overtly: Every veggies snoozing, / beneath the moon so bright, / for nothings more exhausting / than growing day and night. The accompanying illustration shows sleeping radishes just below the earths surface and the earthworm further underground in its own snug home, all tucked up in its looooooong narrow bed, its single sneaker left by the entrance. Martha V. Parravano March/April 2020 p.65(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Even veggies get tired, it seems.Illustrator OHora's adorable anthropomorphic veggies star in this bedtime ramble. The illustrations, appropriately created with 100% vegetarian paper and acrylic paint, portray veggies in brilliant realistic colors with thick, black-line details that pop against a pale sky or textured brown earth. A pink-segmented worm guide with a rakish hat and one sock and sneaker winds its way through an urban rooftop community garden as day ends, visiting every veggie preparing for bed or "snoozing, / beneath the moon so bright, // for nothing's more exhausting / than growing day and night." In Murray's playful rhyming text, "tuckered-out tomatoes" hum lullabies, cauliflowers cuddle, "beets are / simply beat," and "celery is snoring / as sunset disappears." With just two to nine words per page, the story makes for quick reading, but its steady rhythm, whimsical rhymes, abundant alliteration, and hand-lettered sleep-appropriate sounds to share like "zzzzz" and "snore! snore!" extend the read-aloud experience. The illustrations are equally charming, smiling faces on most of the vegetables matching the worm's grin. One rhubarb stalk improbably holds a book, reading aloud to some broccoli. The eggplants are revealed to have expansive dreams! Familiar garden creatures also hide in plain sight on most garden spreads. The human gardener, seen tangentially at the beginning of the story, has brown skin. A bedtime veggie feast for the eyes and ears. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
