When Daddy Tucks Me in

by Sacha Cotter (Author) Josh Morgan (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

A heart-warming and whimsical bedtime story from award-winning author and illustrator team, Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan.

"And what about this key, Dad?"

"This plain, metal key? Why, that's the most important key of them all.

It's my most magical key."

As Dad tucks his daughter into bed, he tells her fantastically imaginative stories about the keys on his key ring and what they unlock--from a zippenburger that takes him to work, to a rocket to collect space noodles, a treasure box in the jungle, and a cookie factory where he taste tests all the cookies. But the most magical key of all is the one that unlocks the front door and brings him home to the child he loves.

Select format:
Hardcover
$18.99

Publisher's Weekly

A large bunch of keys inspires outlandish bedtime stories in this fanciful first-person narrative that centers a brown-skinned father and child in a late-night moment. After the child narrator hears their father, who works late, arrive home after their bedtime, the youth prolongs a tuck-in session with questions about Daddy’s many differently shaped keys. In response, Daddy gamely describes a "lumpy, bumpy key" as fitting the ignition to a wild-looking vehicle called a "zippenburger," and a "rusty" one as unlocking a padlock to the corral of a woolly mammoth. Each time, a distinctive sound effect comes into play: a cookie factory, for example, opens with a "wibbily wobbly wooble." Morgan’s digital artwork, which incorporates found textures for a collaged effect, offers over-the-top scenes of Daddy’s adventuresome imagined work life, until a plain key for an unremarkable door yields a simple reveal: the child, racing to see their dad. 

Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.


Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781728257969
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Publication date
May 20, 2023
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV019000 - Juvenile Fiction | Humorous Stories
JUV051000 - Juvenile Fiction | Imagination & Play
JUV013060 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | Parents
Library of Congress categories
Bedtime
Picture books
Imagination
Fathers and daughters
Locks and keys

Subscribe to our delicious e-newsletter!