Tippy and the Night Parade

Tippy sleepwalks, attracting followers on her somnambulistic ramblings à la the Pied Piper. In the morning beleaguered Mama wonders, "What is this MESS?!"; Tippy replies, "All I remember...is falling ASLEEP!" Carré skillfully employs a limited color palette, with warm oranges underscoring the messy mayhem of Tippy's room and cool midnight blues and slate grays providing a serene backdrop for Tippy's late-night adventures.

Tippy awakens one morning to utter chaos: a bird on her head, a pig in her bed, a horse at her bedroom window, and detritus on the floor. "What is this MESS?" demands Tippy's traumatized mother, but Tippy is clueless. However, all is revealed soon enough: Tippy sleepwalks, attracting followers on her somnambulistic ramblings à la the Pied Piper. As Tippy steps out her door, a crab snatches the hem of her nightgown in one claw and a nearby tulip in the other. A buzzing bee follows the tulip, a frog tries to catch the bee, and so on. Tippy eventually leads the cumulative procession back into her own bedroom, where it's déjà vu all over again: beleaguered Mama wonders, "What is this MESS?!"; Tippy replies, "All I remember…is falling ASLEEP!" In her first book for young children, cartoonist Carré repeats key phrases in the text to help beginning readers: "Maybe I walked into the garden…Who knows?" Tippy's calm, sleepy suppositions clash deliciously with the gradually increasing disorder found in the accompanying panels. Young readers will delight in all the crazy details: the mice dancing on the headboard of Tippy's bed; the mole's hilarious devotion to the bear; the goat chewing Tippy's hair as the story ends. Carré skillfully employs a limited color palette, with warm oranges underscoring the messy mayhem of Tippy's room and cool midnight blues and slate grays providing a serene backdrop for Tippy's late-night ramblings. sam bloom