OUR STORE IS CLOSED ON ANZAC DAY: THURSDAY 25 APRIL
Julia Copus was born in London and now lives in Somerset. She has won First Prize in the National Poetry Competition and the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2010). She also writes for radio; her first play, Eenie Meenie Macka Racka, was awarded the BBC's Alfred Bradley prize. She is a Lector for the Royal Literary Fund, and in 2008 was made an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter. She wrote the Harry and Lil series of picture books. Alison Jay was born in Hertfordshire, grew up in Derbyshire and studied graphic design in London where she now lives. After graduating she worked in animation for a short while but gradually started to working as an illustrator. Her commission's include a 48 sheet poster for B.T, a TV commercial for Kellogg's corn flakes and packaging on a new baby range for Crabtree and Evelyn. She has also illustrated lots of children's books and been nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal for her book Out of the Blue.
Dreamy sights and imaginary creatures surround children floating in their beds in this sleepy rhyming picture book. From the front, a boy in his air-balloon bed sails through the slipsiverse, close by the moon, above trees and hilltops where fluttertufts and whifflepigs sleep and creep, over ponds strong with starlight, and up through the air. His bed is finally blown adrift on the sea where the dream-shapes float; / When night falls my bed is a sailing boat. The child's bed, rather improbably, becomes the balloon itself, the dangling basket his dog's bed, and when it transforms into the sailing ship, the dog's bed becomes a dinghy it tow. In the middle of the book, his sailing-boat bed meets that of a girl, whose adventure is then followed to the end of the book. It mirrors his exactly, ending with When night falls my bed is an air balloon. The book can be read from front to back or from back to front, which is poetic and intriguing once readers unaccustomed to right-to-left texts get used to it. Jay's whimsical paintings with their soft lines, calming blue-green-natural palette, round-faced children, and smiling moon match perfectly with Copus' rhythmic text to make for a calming bedtime read. The boy is white with sandy blond hair and blue eyes; the girl is black, with brown afro puffs. A light bedtime story for children with a taste for whimsy and nonsense. --Kirkus
