Help Wanted, Must Love Books

by Janet Sumner Johnson, Courtney Dawson (Illustrator)

Overview

Shailey loves bedtime, especially reading with her dad. But her dad starts a new job, and it gets in the way of their bedtime routine. So Shailey takes action! She fires her dad, posts a Help Wanted sign, and starts interviews immediately. She is thrilled when her favorite characters from fairytales line up to apply. But Sleeping Beauty can't stay awake, the Gingerbread Man steals her book, and Snow White brings along her whole team. Shailey is running out of options. Is bedtime ruined forever?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630792848
Publisher:	Capstone
Publication date:	08/01/2024
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	600,663
Product dimensions:	7.70(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Janet Sumner Johnson has been writing for as long as she can remember. She bakes a mean cinnamon twist and eats way more cookies than are good for her, which explains her running habit. Though her full-time occupation as Mom takes most of her time, she sneaks in writing at night when her inner funny bone is fully unleashed. Janet lives in Utah with her husband and three kids.

Interviews

Addresses the common struggle of a perfect bedtime routine for caregivers and children

Editorial Reviews

Readers will easily engage with this adorable book, both through its familiar literary characters and the young girl’s love of reading with a parent, making it a welcome addition to the collections of librarians or reading specialists.

Booklist

09/30/2019

Shailey, a brown-skinned girl who sports a pink bandanna, adores bedtime because her dad reads to her every night. But when he gets a new job, his work-life balance suffers, and the child fires him from his position as bedtime storyteller. Selecting a replacement from the applicant pool proves challenging, however, when none of the fairy tale interviewees (Snow White and Cinderella among them) can get the job done just right. Warm digital illustrations highlight Shailey’s plight, and the job posting, which Shailey updates after each failed round of interviews, provides a colorful recurrent motif. Professional diction throughout—such as “individual applicants” and “impressive résumé”—and a message about screen time seem more geared toward adult caretakers than young kids, but the look at distractions readers face in a constantly moving digital world will likely prove resonant with adults and children alike. Ages 4–7. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2019-10-23
When her dad gets too busy for bedtime, Shailey gets busy replacing him.

Shailey loves bedtime, basking in its rituals of sliding into her PJ's, brushing her teeth, and combing her bookshelf for the perfect story. But then her dad gets a new job, and suddenly he is either too busy or too tired to perform his bedtime duties adequately, leading Shailey to fire him and post an announcement for his replacement. Shortly before bedtime, the interview process commences. Illustrations depict the casts of popular stories: the Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the Big Bad Wolf, etc. The storybook characters, mostly white, animal, or edible, create quite the ruckus, causing Shailey to tweak the announcement again and again. Finally she finds a promising job seeker. With his familiar looks, just-right voice, and strawberries-and-chocolate chip cookies smell, Dad has all the prerequisites for the job, provided he keeps work off-limits during bedtime! The HR jargon the book depends on may sail over young readers' heads, but the book's saucy tone has the potential to delight a broad audience. But even though the book features a black protagonist and her father and a few of the storybook characters are depicted as characters of color, the latter all come from the Western European canon—a telling detail that undermines the fun.

Cheery and lighthearted—and a lot less inclusive than it thinks it is. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews