My Bed is an Air Balloon

Description

When night falls my bed is an air balloon. I sail through the slipsiverse, close by the moon. I float above treetops where the nub-nubs are sleeping and flowering hills where the whifflepigs go creeping; ponds strung with starlight that glitter like glass, a floog with its velvet nose bent to the grass. Such treasures I count on. My bed in the trees swings me up high, like a circus trapeze. Now the cool, night-rustling air slips through my finger-gaps, ripples my hair; now we glide over water, the moon's silver light blown by a cloudpuff into the bight, adrift on the sea where the dream-shapes float; when night falls my bed is a sailing boat. When night falls my bed is a sailing boat adrift on the sea where the dream-shapes float, blown by a cloudpuff into the bight. Now we slide over water; the moon's silver light laps at my finger-gaps, ripples my hair; now the cool, night-rustling air swings me up high, like a circus trapeze. Such treasures I count on my bed in the trees - a floog with its velvet nose bent to the grass, ponds strung with starlight that glitter like glass and flowering hills where the whifflepigs go creeping. I float above treetops where the nub-nubs are sleeping; I sail through the slipsiverse, close by the moon. When night falls my bed is an air balloon. A beautifully presented picture book with two front covers, the text can be read from front to back and vice versa. The mirror form poem meets in the middle in a stunning centrepiece image as the two children in the story (twins, one in an air balloon, the other a sailing boat) meet in the clouds!

Julia Copus was born in London and now lives in Somerset. She has won First Prize in the National Poetry Competition and the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2010). She also writes for radio; her first play, Eenie Meenie Macka Racka, was awarded the BBC's Alfred Bradley prize. She is a Lector for the Royal Literary Fund, and in 2008 was made an Honorary Fellow at the University of Exeter. She wrote the Harry and Lil series of picture books. Alison Jay was born in Hertfordshire, grew up in Derbyshire and studied graphic design in London where she now lives. After graduating she worked in animation for a short while but gradually started to working as an illustrator. Her commission's include a 48 sheet poster for B.T, a TV commercial for Kellogg's corn flakes and packaging on a new baby range for Crabtree and Evelyn. She has also illustrated lots of children's books and been nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal for her book Out of the Blue.

"Dreamy sights and imaginary creatures surround children floating in their beds in this sleepy rhyming picture book. From the front, a boy in his air-balloon bed sails "through the slipsiverse, close by the moon," above trees and hilltops where "fluttertufts" and "whifflepigs" sleep and creep, over "ponds strong with starlight," and up through the air. His bed is finally blown "adrift on the sea where the dream-shapes float; / When night falls my bed is a sailing boat." The child's bed, rather improbably, becomes the balloon itself, the dangling basket his dog's bed, and when it transforms into the sailing ship, the dog's bed becomes a dinghy it tow. In the middle of the book, his sailing-boat bed meets that of a girl, whose adventure is then followed to the end of the book. It mirrors his exactly, ending with "When night falls my bed is an air balloon." The book can be read from front to back or from back to front, which is poetic and intriguing once readers unaccustomed to right-to-left texts get used to it. Jay's whimsical paintings with their soft lines, calming blue-green-natural palette, round-faced children, and smiling moon match perfectly with Copus' rhythmic text to make for a calming bedtime read. The boy is white with sandy blond hair and blue eyes; the girl is black, with brown afro puffs. A light bedtime story for children with a taste for whimsy and nonsense."--Kirkus