Time For Bed

Author : Mem Fox
Illustrator : Jane Dyer
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN : 9780152881832
            (Buy / Borrow)

     Having been asked to respond to the question, “Is this an author you would like to read more from, and why?” after listening to a reading of Time For Bed written by Mem Fox, illustrated by Jane Dyer, and published by HMH Books, my answer is absolutely and unequivocally YES!  So far, I've read several of her books and I find her knack for developing engaging text completely irresistible.  What has endeared Mem Fox to me so much more than her amazing talent for writing children’s books, however, is reading about the way she creates her stories.
    On her website, www.memfox.net, she recounts a little bit of the tale of how Time For Bed came to be.  “I was preparing a workshop one night for junior primary (lower elementary) teachers. My aim was to demonstrate ‘group writing’. I thought if I could find two good rhyming lines to start with we could finish the story together, much as the teachers might, with their own children in class. So I came up with:
          ‘It’s time for bed, little mouse, little mouse,
          Darkness is falling all over the house.’
I liked it but wondered how difficult it would be to finish. Would the teachers and I be able to do it? I decided to try to finish it myself to see how hard it would be. I was so pleased with the first draft I read it to Malcolm who was crazy about it and said: ‘I think you’ve just written another book.’”
    I can honestly say that I’ve read over this entry on Mem Fox’s website as much as I’ve read and reread the copy of Time For Bed that I found and purchased at Barnes and Noble this week, and with as much joy.  It is truly something special when you are able to see someone doing what comes naturally, and so well, without even trying!  It’s these special bits of a creator’s personality that help to make books like these memorable experiences for children.  For instance, the Mem Fox of my childhood is American author and illustrator Richard Scarry.  Quite by chance, my sister and I received a copy of his Best Word Book Ever, and from then on, we were hooked on everything he produced.
    I will definitely be adding copies of Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge, Possum Magic, Wombat Devine, Shoes From Grandpa, and Hattie And The Fox to my collection of books, and I have a feeling that, as I become more acquainted with the other books from Mem Fox’s catalog, I will be adding many of them as well.
     Even if I don’t end up teaching in the lower elementary grades, these books can still be very useful.  During some time spent observing a fifth grade class, for instance, I noted that the teacher would select and read a children’s book each day after her students returned from recess as a way to center and refocus them.  It was an amazingly effective technique, and I look forward to using it in my own classroom someday.