Darkness is falling, and one pair at a time the animals settle: a mouse, a goose, a cat, a snake, a sheep, a horse, a fish, and last of all a child. Mem Fox wrote it in couplets that land on the same soft beat every time, which is exactly what you want at the end of a day when nobody has any patience left.

Jane Dyer paints the animals in warm watercolor with their parents leaning over them, and the light drops page by page until the last spread is nearly dark. The book puts itself to sleep. Read it in the same order every night and it starts doing some of the work for you.

Twenty eight board pages with rounded corners, sized for hands that are not gentle yet.