Good Night, Earth

“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