Bunmi Laditan, author. Tom Knight, illustrator. Farrar, Straus, Girroux, 2018.

This picture book highlights the struggle of children sharing their parents’ bed, but it’s the protagonist’s view of her parents that hits home for me. Mommy is full of cozies, smells like fresh bread, and belongs to the child, at least at nighttime. Daddy is gifted at horsie and piggy back rides and wrestling. He thinks that his daughter’s nightlight should perfectly squelch her fears of the dark.

The child questions why Daddy doesn’t like to share a bed with his wife and daughter–is it the child’s bed-wetting? Is he squished? Should his own mommy come over to sing him to sleep?

The little girl hilariously delivers her solution–that Daddy sleep in a cot beside The Big Bed that she shares with Mommy–in an adult-like fashion: “Mommy and I will be right next to you if you need anything. Anything at all,” “Daddy, I see you. I hear you,” and “Tomorrow, we’re going to pick out some special new sheets.”

Unbeknownst to the child, Mommy and Daddy do not share her opinion, yet the reader is left to wonder if her parents will compromise with their precocious offspring; her well-executed, one-sided argument may be deserving of at least one more night in The Big Bed. This picture book will have the whole family laughing, especially children that catch on to the manipulations of the child protagonist.