Sleep Tight, Snow White

PreS-Gr 1—This collection of short poems is uniformly composed of rhyming couplets, and each one offers a succinct look at the nighttime rituals of familiar fairy-tale characters. For example, "Want a fella,/Cinderella?/Eight hours' sleep/will make you bella." One poem advises the Princess and her teddy bear Pea stacked atop a pile of colorful mattresses that "If there's a lump, just let it be," though if the princess had been content to ignore the lump under her mattress, her true heritage would never have been discovered. Each poem is expanded upon by a two-page digital illustration done in rich colors to depict a detailed scene and soft lines and shapes that reinforce the quiet tone. Alvarez uses a variety of skin tones to depict the familiar characters and creates a diverse cast of expressive people and animals to populate each fairy-tale world.