Very Little Sleeping Beauty

PreS-Gr 1—The night before Very Little Sleeping Beauty's birthday party, her father says she needs to go to bed early, but Very Little Sleeping Beauty is not very tired. Instead, she asks him for a song ("A proper sing-song song!"), to play, and to get her bedtime necessities like her bear, her blanket, and her "drink in her special-est cup." When it takes Daddy a long time to come back, Very Little Sleeping Beauty decides to search high and low, until she finds Aunt Fairy with a special gift, a spinning wheel that Very Little Sleeping Beauty thinks is a wheel for pretend driving. After playing, accidentally breaking the wheel, and apologizing to Aunt Fairy, Very Little Sleeping Beauty sleeps through the entire next day until she wakes up just in time for her birthday pajama party. The watercolor and ink illustrations are vibrant and playful, highlighted by the plain white backgrounds that dominate the book. Only three pages have a different color background, subtly showing that Very Little Sleeping Beauty is scared or braving the dark. The text has a great read-aloud rhythm that encourages kids to predict what will happen next, with font size variations that help emphasize certain parts of the story. Fans of Heapy and Heap's previous titles will enjoy seeing cameo appearances of previous characters at the end of the book.