Being vegetarian, the gentle eyes of that precious calf warm my heart. Jane’s precious drawings of animal infants with their Mothers, sweetly equalize us all. We come from parents, all of us born tiny, and metamorphose at our species’ pace. Especially: every other Earthling, mammals and all of the other kinds, share our base needs in common. The dearest message is twofold: we aren’t alone in falling asleep. When we say “whole world” to an infant, we mean the sky stretching above her home and the billions of life forms sharing the night of her environment. The grace and soulfulness of this sleeping exercise is far apart from geographic time zones. They understand everyone in their immediate world is doing the same.

Floating, alliterative rhyming encourages potentially reluctant or distracted children that falling asleep at this moment is positive and timely. The words are the simplest possible, to connect with the tiniest children and lull them. The purpose seems to be to show us one loving, warm tableau of an animal’s home life on each page, which Mem does indeed do well. I am giving four-star feedback because no story was woven together to retain and pass along. It seems right to know any good author in Canada.

A unique touch I learned is that author Mem Fox, is a famous name in Australian board books. I would enjoy giving this to my niece and coming nephew. It is brief enough to always fit in a thematic, soothing tradition. “ Time For Bed”, illustrated by Jane Dyer, is a special book I imagine parents reading to infants, toddlers, and beyond a warm part of tucking-in that families would cherish. She is an influential international consultant in literacy, but she pretends to sit around writing full time. She has visited the United States over one hundred times, mostly in her role as a literacy expert although she is also a well-known author in America. She has received many civic awards, honours and accolades in Australia, including two honorary doctorates. Mem Fox was an Associate Professor in Literacy Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, where she taught teachers for twenty four years until her early retirement in 1996.

Mem has written thirty picture books for children and five non-fiction books for adults, including the best-selling Reading Magic, aimed at parents of very young children. Time for Bed is on Oprah’s list of the twenty best children’s books of all time.

And in the USA Time for Bed and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge have each sold over a million copies. Her first book, Possum Magic, is the best selling children’s book ever in Australia, with sales of over three million. Mem Fox is Australia’s most highly regarded picture-book author. Mem Fox was born in Australia, grew up in Africa, studied drama in England, and returned to Adelaide, Australia in 1970, where she has lived with her husband, Malcolm, and daughter Chloë, happily ever after.

Time for bed mem fox board book