Rating: WORTHY!
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
When I was a kid, me and my younger brother slept in bunk beds, with him on the top one. One night I was lying awake when something dropped to the floor, and I reached to pick it up thinking it was one of his plush toys that had fallen down, but the thing reared up. It freaked me out until I realized it was the cat which had evidently been up there on his bunk and just jumped down. Way to weird out a young kid!
Nasla has a similar problem and she never does discover what it is, but in this book aimed at reassuring young children that the things which might give them some cause for fear at night are not really fearful at all, some equally strange things take place.
Lying in bed in the dark and decidedly not going to sleep, Nasla is concerned about this little yellow circle of light on top of her wardrobe, which is where she keeps her old toys now she's feeling grown up. So is this light coming from her elephant? Her broken hippo? Is it somehow caused by moonlight? The more Nasla contemplates it, the more fantastical are the images that go through her mind and her ideas about how she might ease not her own fears, but those of her toys.
Eventually, of course she does fall asleep and that's when we readers discover what it was. I enjoyed this book, and the imagery, artistry, and imagination that went into creating it. I commend it as a worthy read.
