The Prince's Bedtime

The Prince's Bedtime by Joanne Oppenheim
Illustrated by Miriam Latimer
2007

     The Prince can't fall asleep.  Well, it's not that he can't, he just won't go to sleep. The Queen and King are at their wits's ends trying to find a way to get their prince to go bed. "If anyone knows how to make the prince rest, please come at once to the royal address!"  And so begins the parade: a  bearded physician with sleep medicine, a troupe of dancers, a mustached magician, a peasant carrying a stuffed quilt, jesters, jugglers, cooks...all trying to help the prince to fall asleep, but to no avail.  Then, an old woman came to the palace and the King asked "And what can you do? Do you dance? Can you sing? What's in your bag? What did you bring?"  The woman reached inside her bag, pulled out a book and told the prince "I'll read while you look."  "But where are the pictures?" "You'll see them if you just close your eyes."  And he did, and "he fell asleep for the night."
     The Prince's Bedtime is a great read aloud, and a fun bedtime story.  The illustrations are beautiful and the rhymes flow and never seem forced.  I love a good rhyming story! There is something intrinsically cool about reading a bedtime story about reading a bedtime story...kind of meta, right?