How to Make a Bedtime
by Meg McKinlay; illus. by Karen Blair
Preschool, Primary    Candlewick    32 pp.
1/25    9781536236057    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781536249811    $18.99

Clad in blue pajamas, an adult bear (who serves as narrator) guides a young human child through their nightly bedtime routine in this comforting, lightly surreal tale. Walking on all fours at first, the bear gives the child a piggyback ride up the stairs and to the tub. McKinlay’s rhyming text is both lulling and lively as the youngster, adorned with a soap-bubble beard, plays with a rubber duckie. A page-turn later, the ursine caregiver has become more anthropomorphized, standing on two legs. The child, now in pajamas and reunited with a briefly lost teddy bear, seems ready to fall asleep. However, amusingly, it is the grownup who keeps stretching out the bedtime process by singing lullabies and reading a multitude of stories about dragons, fairies, trucks, and, in a meta moment, this very book. Blair deftly employs soothing colors in her illustrations, capturing the coziness of this warm ritual; the large bear never feels imposing, and the child’s sleepy body language is sweet. A coda shows the tired adult bear ambling off to a special sleeping spot for the night. A bear hug of a book that could become a bedtime favorite.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.