Twenty Yawns

After a day at the beach, Mom falls asleep reading Lucy a story. "Suddenly Lucy was wide awake." She needs her stuffed animals, and the process of fetching them and tucking them into bed settles Lucy. Smiley evinces a deep understanding of a child's sensibilities; Castillo's color-saturated illustrations capture the family's love and warmth. The titular twenty yawns are incorporated perfectly into the story.

Lucy and her parents stay late at the beach, playing in the waves, walking the length of the shore, rolling down dunes, building a sandcastle. Everyone is happily worn out, and Mom decrees an early bedtime. So far, so predictable -- but then: Mom falls asleep in the middle of reading Lucy a story. "Suddenly, Lucy was wide awake." With the silvery moonlight making everyday objects look mysterious (even the family pictures taped up on her bedroom wall seem to be looking at her), Lucy needs her bear, Molasses. The process of fetching him and her other stuffed animals and tucking them into bed comforts and settles Lucy, and she soon falls asleep. There's so much right about this picture book, Pulitzer Prize-winning (for A Thousand Acres) Smiley's first. Together, her text and Castillo's digital illustrations first establish a warm family dynamic (an interracial family, by the way) and then, in that context, show a small child able to cope with an unfamiliar situation on her own. Smiley evinces a deep understanding of a child's sensibilities, from Lucy thinking that her stuffed animals look lonely to her imagination animating the pictures on her wall. Castillo's color-saturated illustrations capture every bit of the joy of the family's busy beach day; the shivery strangeness of being the only one awake in the house; and the love and warmth that permeate all the interactions here. And the twenty yawns (yes, you can count them) are pure genius: whether from expected or unexpected sources, they are incorporated perfectly into the story. martha v. parravano