Stella Keeps the Sun Up
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In this incandescently fun, hijinks-filled picture book, a young girl schemes to keep the sun up in the sky so she never has to go to bed.
If Stella had her way, she would stop sleeping on her sixth birthday. Because sleep is boring. And there are so many better things you could be doing. And Stella is tired of being tired. So she comes up with a plan. People only have to go to bed when it gets dark, and it only gets dark because the sun goes down. If she can keep the sun in the sky, she and her best friend, Roger, can stay up for a hundred years!
They enact their magnificent, wonderful, genius plan, offering the sun a cup of coffee, shining a light at it so it will shine back, and jumping on a trampoline to reach the sun and push it higher. But before long, Stella begins to wonder…are there downsides to keeping the sun up forever?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an inventive ploy to avoid another "boring" night sleeping, a child named Stella and her blue stuffed hippo, Roger, endeavor to keep the sun up. Donning "supersize sunglasses" and "plenty of sunscreen," the Black protagonist tries multiple tactics on the day star, including confusion (doing extra-long morning yoga so the sun doesn't know the time, eating cereal midday) and stimulation (banging on a drum, shining flashlights, attempting to deliver coffee), all while the sun looks on in Gaines's airbrush-style digital scenes. As the day closes, the young narrator despairs until realizing that if the sun doesn't set, then Stella's long-distance best friend, portrayed with pale skin and black hair, won't be able to rise on the other side of the world—an epiphany that provides a well-timed reason to embrace nighttime rituals, and adult readers with a fresh reason for arguing in favor of a good night's rest. Ages 4–8.
