Everybody sleeps. It's a common bedtime-book premise. In this send-up, there's an exception to the rule: Fred. Don't let his nighttime routine of bathing and toothbrushing fool you. His toy boat (SS Insomnia) grows large! Fred packs for his adventures in the snoozy jungle, where he jumps; and on the dozy farm, where he shouts, blowing the barn apart. No one can sleep when Fred is around. The art tells its own cumulative tale. An exhausted character from each setting carries over into the next (many of them foreshadowed by the toys in Fred's room). They appear against backdrops of white space, allowing youngsters to pore over their expressive faces as well as other details in the art. What tuckers out Fred? The rhyming verse introduces a poetry book "so boring / children soon are prone and snoring." With Fred finally asleep, the tale concludes with a warning: "Close book softly or Fred will wake up . . .," prompting screams. A bedtime story sure to inspire dreams of imaginative antics.

K-Gr 2 It's bedtime. All the animalssnoozing toucans, dozing chickens, heaps of wooly sheep, and even whales lulled by rocking currentsare beginning their cozy slumber. Rambunctious Fred has too many plans to even think of bed, however. First he has to break the world record for shouting, then his horn collection needs testing. He even needs to practice his karate chops. After multiple zany spreads depict the pajama-clad troublemaker doing his best to stay up, he's suddenly missing. Readers find him collapsed, thumb in mouth, using one of the hapless sheep as a pillow. While children will enjoy Fred's antics and identify with his reluctance to hit the hay, parents should be ready to explain some of the elements in the book. Sasquatch and breaking records, for example, are not concepts that are generally familiar to the target audience, but explaining them offers a jumping-off point for examining the scads of details in Schneider's colorful cartoons. A fun addition to the bedtime canon.— Etta Verma , Library Journal