STORYTIME WITH STEPHANIE

View Original

A Starlit Trip to the Library

The perfect bedtime story to take on vacation, A Starlit Trip to the Library by Andrew Katz, Juliana Léveillé-Trudel and Joseph Sherman will have your little readers drifting off with dreams of adventures.

Julia and her friends are camping. It’s night and just about time to tuck in for a bedtime story when Julia realizes that she forgot to bring a book. Luckily, her good friend Bertrand arrives on his boat and tells them all about the library. Bertrand, Julia and her friends all take a trip down the river and back to get the perfect bedtime story.

A Starlit Trip to the Library is an adventure not like any other. Featuring a little girl and her animal friends, it’s the perfect story for calm down time or bedtime. There is a little bit of an adventure and a lovely conclusion at the end and really, who wouldn’t love a nighttime trip to the library! Andrew Katz has evoked all of the feelings that made stories like Treasure Island and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer so popular. It feels nostalgic but not old fashioned.

I especially loved Bertrand, the pirate bear. I love the way he spoke, using words we don’t hear as much nowadays but words that are very fun to say. I appreciate when an author revives some fun vocabulary in their stories. Even though it’s a picture book, its really fun and inspiring to add some new words for readers to discover.

Don’t forget about the back matter, as the team has included some fascinating information about constellations as well as lyrics and a link to a song created especially for the story by Taes Leavitt.

The art by Joseph Sherman is perfectly cartoonish. As an animation designer, he brings much of his work in film to the pages of this book making the illustrations dynamic and letting readers feel like they are inside their favourite show.