Bless This House: A Bedtime Prayer for the World - Hardcover

Leslie Staub's paintings have been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States. In addition to her books for Harcourt, she has illustrated Lives: Poems About Famous Americans. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ages 2-4. "Bless my window opened wide / Bless the creatures who live outside." With simple chant and bright oil paintings, a bedtime ecological prayer connects a child in his room with all the animal life on the planet: in the forest and the ocean, in ponds and on plains. Insects receive only grudging inclusion ("even the bugs . . . even the ones with really small brains"), but that may be to force the rhyme. The playful pictures in big circular frames show all kinds of creatures, from elephants and hyenas to dogs and birds ("trumpeters, yappers, crowers and yowlers"), which the boy knows are there as he curls up in bed with his cat in his cozy room. The chant is nondenominational, as much lullaby as blessing, and young children will enjoy identifying the animals, the sounds they make, the places they live, and the connections between us all through the night. Hazel Rochman
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