Tired Town
by Patricia Marx (Author) Roz Chast (Illustrator)
Goodnight Moon meets Goodnight Already! in this very funny bedtime book from New Yorker contributors Patricia Marx and Roz Chast.
This is the story of Nellie Bee Nightly, who is not tired at all. And swears she never will be! The popcorn is too pooped to pop, and the nightstand is too tired to stand up straight and must lie down -- but Nellie? Nope, she's wide awake, and not ready for bedtime at all. Instead, she gives her goldfish a mustache and hangs her bed from the ceiling so that she can install a swimming pool in her room. Nellie, after all, went to sleep last night, and shouldn't that be enough sleep to last a lifetime?
Wonderfully quirky, subversively sweet, and effortlessly classic, Tired Town is a brilliant new bedtime story.
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Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly
As the sun sets on Manhattan-esque Tired Town, this antic picture book's collaborators (Now Everybody Really Hates Me) portray the city's thoroughly exhausted residents: "The spaghetti is so drained, it can't stand up straight. The eggs are so fried, they can't keep their yolks open," Marx writes. But sleep is a no-go for pale-skinned Nellie Bee Nightly, who sports wide-open eyes and a bright cloud of red hair. "I went to sleep LAST night," she tells her pleading parents, and then devises a long list of pre-bed to-do's . In Chast's comically anxious watercolors, which fairly vibrate with activity, the child persuades doll Naked Nancy to don pj's, gives goldfish Cheesy a makeover, and creates a walkway from her bed to the bathroom. As the child finally lies down ("I'm not sleeping... I'm pretending to be a log"), the bedroom lamp calls a halt to the goings-on, turning itself off with a "KLIK" as Nellie, at last, drifts off. The recalcitrant sleeper is a mainstay of picture books, but this silly soporific by two of contemporary humor's best brings real verve to the event. Ages 3-6. Author's agent: Esther Newberg, ICM Partners. Illustrator's agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Oct.)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
★ "As in all the best bedtime reads, rhythmic language joins somniferous images in both the art and the narrative to weave an effective spell that will send listeners in Nellie Bee's wake straight to dreamland." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"This silly soporific by two of contemporary humor's best brings real verve." - Publishers WeeklyPatricia Marx is a longtime New Yorker staff writer and a former writer for SNL and Rugrats. Her novels, Him Her Him Again the End of Him, and Starting from Happy were Thurber Prize finalists. She's the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her first children's book, Now Everybody Really Hates Me (illustrated by Roz Chast), was the first and only winner of the Friedrich Medal, an award made up by Patricia and named after her air conditioner. She has never slept in her life.
Roz Chast's work has appeared in numerous magazines through the years, but she is most closely associated with the New Yorker. In addition to collections of her New Yorker cartoons, Chast has written and illustrated a wide range of books. Her first memoir, Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? won a National Book Critics Circle Award and was a National Book Award finalist. She has two pet birds, who would prefer she never slept.JUV010000 - Juvenile Fiction | Bedtime & Dreams
JUV013000 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | General
Picture books
Families
Family life
Humorous fiction
Girls
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