num_pages: 32
description: In some ways, bedtime brings out the best of parent and child. I don't mean that it's always a time of quiet sharing and affection; anyone with kids knows it's often more like herding cats. At age four, my daughter Cassie would describe herself, with unconscious accuracy, as "still wild awake." But for all that, it's essentially a ritual of love and comfort-and all the goodness comes together when we read to our children before they sleep.That's why I wrote "Dark-Sparkle Tea," and why I included poems to match all of a child's bedtime moods. Kids need, of course, a sense of safety andcoziness I remember how our son Nick, as a four-year-old, once woke up screaming, "Night is never-ending! Night is never-ending!" But childrenare also open, as always, to humor, curiosity, and wonder. Nick once asked me, "Dad, do you think there's such a thing as aliens-do you think they have such a thing as alien hamsters?" And kids inevitably want, of course,to be entertained our son Seth once responded to a couple of lecture-like sentences of mine with, "Don't tell me again, Dad my ears get stale."Sharp and sassy as they can be, though, they're also suckers for the lyrical when they're in the right mood-as Nick was when he wrote, "I wish the map you could jump into and return to the real world." Or when Cassie, wearing a party hat, announced herself as the "Queen Brave Rainbow Unicorn named Jennifer!" In these poems I promise you the riches of bedtime. I promise a rock-and-roll hamster and the royal land of dreams-snuggling up with a lovable lion and planning future adventures-a crazy sleepwalker and theease of sleepy bees-affectionate skunks and a worthywatchdog-silliness-sleepiness-cricket song-and all of it sprinkled with moon and stars. And it's my fervent hope that neither your ears nor your child's will get stale.
language: English
title: Dark Sparkle Tea
titlecomplete: Dark Sparkle Tea
genres: Picture Books, Poetry
ratings_count: 11
publisher: Wordsong