From the savanna to the city to outer space, celebrated Nordic children's book illustrator Linda Bondestam offers a charming peek at the many ways we settle in for sleep, with gorgeous, dreamlike illustrations full of offbeat humor.

Discover the bedtime routines of animals all over the world through the eyes of an alien family on a faraway planet. Little monkey needs his mama to play at least seventy-three songs on the ukulele to fall asleep. A meerkat family enjoys some stretches together as the sun goes down, while baby sloth is a bedtime expert-she's already snoozing soundly in the trees. Die-cut pages invite little ones to help new animal friends get cozy under the covers.

With unconventional illustrations full of wit and tenderness, Good Night, Earth is a sweetly silly exploration of how all kinds of creatures find peaceful and playful ways to end the day.

About the Author
About the Author

Linda Bondestam is an illustrator based in Helsinki. A graduate of Kingston University in London, she has illustrated dozens of children's books that have been translated into more than ten languages. One of the most celebrated illustrators in the Nordic countries, Linda was awarded the Snoebollen for Swedish Picture Book of the Year in 2016 and the Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize in 2017 for Djur som ingen sett utom vi (Animals that no one has seen except us). She was also nominated for the August Prize in 2020 for Mitt bottenliv (My life at the bottom) and is a six-time ALMA nominee, among various other awards. Good Night, Earth is her authorial debut.

About the Translator

Galit Hasan-Rokem is a folklore scholar, translator, and Professor Emerita in the Department of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She continues to conduct research, supervise graduate students, and translate poetry, mainly from the Swedish into Hebrew. She is the author of many books and articles and a published poet, as well as the founding editorial board member and cultural editor of Palestine-Israel Journal, the coeditor of Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore, and the associate editor of Proverbium.

Reviews

"Told from the perspective of a green alien family on a faraway planet, Bondestam's endearing solo debut offers a peek into the fictional bedtime routines of animals from around the world.... Offbeat humor permeates the text... and accompanies Bondestam's quirky, multipatterned collage-style illustrations. The penultimate bedtime routine will resonate with parental readers, while the final spreads offer a last laugh for young ones."

-Publishers Weekly

"Animals around the world are headed to bed in this beautifully illustrated book, which adds an odd twist of quirkiness to make it an intriguing read.... The animals are depicted in a wonderful artistic manner, which adds a dash of sophistication. In other words, these are simply well done and beautiful in their style and flair."

-Tonja Drecker, Bookworm for Kids

"What a fun, quirky bedtime story!...The facial expressions on the animals have very human fatigue written all over them, which will delight human parents.... The aliens are adorable, and provide a second story while the reader waits to see what happens with each animal family. Half-pages interspersed throughout allow the fun of a lift-the-flap surprise. The language... is poetic, whimsical, sometimes beautiful. Linking it all together is the gorgeous art, with mixed media textures and several instances of beautiful marbled paper."

-Stephanie Tournas, Youth Services Book Review, Starred Review

"Inventive book design and shifting perspectives add cozy surprises to this bedtime snoozer.... In Hasan-Rokem's translation from the Swedish, the text is poetic, sly, and funny.... Along with adding sly anthropomorphic touches to the rest of the cast, [Bondestam] caps the nighttime scenes with one final one of a comically frazzled family of owls barely getting through a sunrise supper of croissants and hot chocolate before collapsing. Parents of younger children will definitely relate. A droll and imaginative addition to the crepuscular corpus."

-Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"In Good Night, Earth, Finnish artist Linda Bondestam's funny and beautiful picture book (translated from the Swedish by Galit Hasan-Rokem), a couple of lumpy green creatures from a faraway planet spy on the baffling bedtime habits of Earthlings. Bondestam's mixed-media illustrations... are wonderfully detailed, and she picked unusual creatures (an axolotl, a tarsier, those meerkats) to depict, giving them all vivid expressions. Some look demonic, some worried, some deeply suspicious, some (the kiwis) slightly crazed. It's the eyes. They all have great, expressive eyes."

-Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Book Information
ISBN 9781632062864
Author Linda Bondestam
Format Hardback
Page Count 48
Imprint Yonder
Publisher Restless Books