"Everyone's Awake" by Colin Meloy and Shawn Harris (Chronicle Children's Books)

The bedtime routine. Hah, if you live in a house like ours, you'll know exactly where "Everyone's Awake" by Colin Meloy and Shawn Harris is coming from.

Just as the house is beginning to settle down for the night, there's always at least one more thing to do.

Dad is baking bread.

Grandma is busy with her sewing.

Mum is tap-dancing to Prince (that girl has taste!)

Dog and Cat are fighting.

....and before you know it, the whole house isn't settling down at all - it erupts into a complete chaotic frenzied hubbub - but will anyone be able to function in the morning? Sometimes all you need is a good night's sleep.

Colin and Shawn have cooked up a crazy and chaotic story that busy little bees will love at bedtime, particularly those who can't help jumping on the bed rather than snuggling down into it.

Hang on a minute, what's going on downstairs?!

There are so many brilliant story threads to pick up on here, wrapped around the text. The details in Shawn's illustrations are fabulously funny.

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1999! Doesn't look like there's much sleeping going on here, does it?

Sum this book up in a sentence: We got this book, oh did we ever get this book - and the wry observations that not every house settles down to a blissful sleep every night!

"Everyone's Awake" by Colin Meloy and Shawn Harris is out now, published by Chronicle Children's Books (kindly supplied for review).