Time for Bed

Why It's On Our Shelf

The refrain 'it's time for bed' gets repeated throughout the book in different contexts, which creates a hypnotic quality perfect for winding down. Each page shows a different animal mother putting her baby to bed, and the illustrations by Jane Dyer are soft and dreamy. What works is the way it validates the bedtime experience across species - all the baby animals are tired, all the mothers are gentle, and everyone settles down together. The rhythm is slow and calming, not exciting, which is exactly what you want in a bedtime book. It's the kind of book that helps signal to a child's brain that sleep is coming.