Monday, January 19, 2009

Sandra Boynton: The Going to Bed Book

My first Sandra Boynton experience was a birthday card that said “Hippo Birdies Two Ewe.” It was accompanied by simple, whimsical illustrations of a hippo, birds, and two ewe. I’ve loved her quirky sense of humor and her illustrations ever since. (Okay, that “ewe” pluralization sounded odd to me as I wrote it just now, so I looked it up on wiktionary. Sandra is right—“ewe” can be pluralized with or without the “s.” Who gnu?)

http://www.waiteland.com/just4kids/images/book%20images/going-to-bed.jpg

A true small-size board book made of paper over board, The Going to Bed Book is goofiness at its finest. A crew of endearing animals on board a ship prepare for bed by going below to take a bath, brush their teeth, and so on. The surprise comes as the moon rises, when they all go upstairs for a bit of exercise before settling down to sleep. The rhythm never misses a beat and the last spread echoes the soothing, sway of a ship as "They rock and rock and rock to sleep."

http://babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/boynten.jpg

Inside scoop:

According to an article in the New York Times, Sandra Boynton’s studio is located in a renovated barn beside her Connecticut home, which sits on 100 acres. With her first illustration sale at age 14 to a local newspaper, she bought two shares of AT&T stock!

Enjoy these videos of families reading this book. Take a look:





The Going to Bed Book
Sandra Boynton, author-illustrator
Little Simon, 1995

~ Joan Holub, author

5 comments:

Lorie Ann Grover said...

Fun post, Joan! Thanks so much!

Z-Kids said...

Long time Sandra Boynton fan here... "Blue Hat Green Hat" is my fave. We just recently discovered her fabulous music as well and have fallen in love all over again.

holly cupala said...

We LOVE that book.

Amy @ Literacy Launchpad said...

We love Sandra Boynton at our house! Love these videos. How cute! Can't wait till my guy can interact a little more during our reading times.

I've got a photo of him reading Boynton's Snuggle Puppy in this post: http://literacylaunchpad.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-little-reader.html

Joan Holub said...

Hey Aaron. I love her music, too. The article link in my post was interesting to me because it talked about Sandra's passion for the music books, which keeps her creating them even though they aren't necessarily the moneymakers that her other books are. Plus, she gets to work with people like Meryl Streep on the music books. Mama mia!

Hi Holly--we think alike!

Hi Amy, thanks for sharing the cute photo.