All Through The Night

Kirkus - Set to the tender night song's standard English text, a suite of muted scenes features a drowsy, tousled child in bed beneath stars and angels.
Using long, visible strokes of brush and colored pencil, Alizadeh sets figures that look like small wooden dolls in misty scenes lit dimly by a candle, a moon with dots for eyes or informally drawn stars within pale nimbuses. Along with a parent at the beginning and near the end, doves, clouds and lambent-winged guardian angels hover as the young sleeper drifts off in gentle stages. This edition comes without a musical arrangement, and despite the titular refrain, the 19th-century translation from the Welsh doesn't always read trippingly, for example, of angels: "They should of all fears disarm you, / No foreboding should alarm you. // They will let no peril harm you...." Still, the aforementioned refrain creates a soothing rhythm that anchors the song's assurance of peaceful slumber.
The lyrics are better when sung--in either language--but their tone is properly echoed in these sweet, soft-focus illustrations. (Picture book. 2-4)

Publisher's Weekly
This traditional Welsh lullaby receives fine treatment with Alizadeh's spare and evocative paintings. Illustrations appear on the right side of each spread, match- ing a verse on the left. The opening bed- time image of a mother and child with dot eyes and red cheeks--rendered in soft brush strokes in muted reds, yel- lows, and blues--sets a calming tone. For the second verse ("Guardian angels God will send you, / All through the night") three angels appear as doll-like children with wings (one of them resem- bling the child from the opening scene) against a swirly gray-blue sky with gold stars. Alizadeh's illustrations include ex- pansive bird's-eye views of tiny houses on hills, guarded by a large, attentive moon; a close-up of sleeping birds; and several depictions of the child in bed, floating among white clouds, or being guarded by hovering angels. A welcome rendition of a gentle bedtime song. Ages 3-7. (June)