In a Blue Room by Jim Averbeck, Illustrated by Tricia Tusa

In a Blue Room by Jim Averbeck is a perfect bedtime routine book. Alice, wide awake past bedtime, complains to her mother that she can only sleep in a blue room, and her room is pale yellow. Her mother coaxes her to use sensory experiences to calm herself and prepare for bed. She brings lilacs and lilywhites and Alice can imagine swirling in the scent in a blue room. Her mother offers her orange tea that makes Alice sleepy. Her red and green quilt feels snuggly and warm, and she imagines a cozy blue room. Soft windchimes sing to a now drowsy Alice. And finally, the light goes out and the moon casts a blue light on the room, and Alice can sleep soundly in her blue room.

Tricia Tusa's illustrations are soft and soothing. I loved the sensory descriptions as they might appear to a child. Children live in a sensory world, and this book captured the essence of a child's bedtime experience.

Gulliver Snip by Julia Kay

Bath time is a dangerous and exciting adventure for Gulliver Snip, the little boy who sails the world in his “clipper ship that his mother called the bathtub.” With a bathtub ship and a shower curtain for a sail, Gulliver is off on a grand adventure. He is caught in a tumultuous storm that, despite his courageous efforts, floods his ship and breaks the mast. He casts off with a packing trunk for a boat and the storm sends him off on a journey to a deserted island.

Gulliver has the blessing of imagination without awareness of the calamity he is causing to the house. Every piece of furniture is a part of his great adventure, every moment holds the thrill of imminent danger. In the end his mother rescues him from peril and asks him if he was responsible for the mess. The bathroom is flooded, the shower curtain torn and the lamp broken, but she patiently puts him to bed where he dreams of tomorrow’s adventures in his bathtub clipper ship.

The illustrations are colorful and fanciful. Images from Gulliver’s imagination are playfully juxtaposed with images of the chaos he is wreaking in the home, eliciting some giggles from Little Lia.

Lia (age 4) says: “It’s about that the boy climbs up the shower rod and puts his foot out and he is pretending his bathtub is the ship. He’s in the suitcase and wearing the pan on his head and pretending the chair is the island. He holds on to the lamp and then breaks it and the mama is so upset and asks if Gulliver did it. He said ‘Yes, sorry.’ He was grumpy and didn’t want his hair dried. And he fell asleep and dreamed about the moon and the ship was happy and the ground had water on it. And the bathtub floated away.”

She liked when he was grumpy and didn’t want his hair dried. She didn’t like that the mom was mad at him. Lia says kids should read this book.