Children's Book Review: *Sweet Dreams Lullaby* by Betsy Snyder

Sweet Dreams Lullaby by Betsy Snyder

Back-of-the-book blurb:  This peaceful and imaginative picture book invites a bunny—tucked snugly in bed—to dream of comforting scenes from nature’s bedtime. Each spread reveals a delightful dreamscape for children to imagine as they drift off to the lulling rhyming text.

She Is Too Fond of Books’ review:  If Sweet Dreams Lullaby were around 13 - or even 3 - years ago, it would have been part of our bedtime routine.  As it is, with the youngest now six, I’m thrilled with the extra snuggle time we get when he chooses it for his bedtime story, and gratified when I spot him sitting and “reading” it on his own. 

Betsy Snyder’s detailed and colorful collage illustrations stretch across two pages.  After Mama Bunny tucks her little one in for the night (in a room complete with carrot-shaped lampshade, a bunny bank, and bunny slippers), she sings (or recites) the lullaby that suggests a series of sweet dreams inspired by the nature around them:

dream of water-lily beds
where baby peepers rest their heads.
a daddy frog sings low and deep,
lulling all the pond to sleep.

I appreciate that the cadence is fairly smooth, without forced rhymes.  Vocabulary is poetic and led to a discussion about imagery with our 8-year-old when we read “imagine blossoms, soft as snow, that blanket flower beds below.

We can’t get enough of the illustrations, similar in style to Snyder’s award-winning Haiku Baby (and, yes, I’d love to see Sweet Dreams Lullaby in a board book version).  Even the endpapers are a delight, with unusual constellations such as “sleepy snail” and “little fish.”  It’s a “keeper” and a great gift.