New York Times / New York Public Library:
Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award 2022

The BRAW Amazing Bookshelf – Bologna Raggazzi Award 2022

Awarded “Best of Show 2022″ – The Year’s Most Beautiful Books (the Norwegian Designer’s Guild visual prize)

Awarded “GOLD – Best Illustrations and Design Children’s Book 2022″ – The Year’s Most Beautiful Books (the Norwegian Designer’s Guild visual prize)

Nominated for the 2021 Ministry of Culture Picture Book Prize

Nominated for the 2021 Norwegian Book Prize (The Brage Prize)

“Deeply comforting and joyful, this bedtime story features a wiggly toddler whose patient, playful mom takes him through his nighttime routine by indulging his imagination at every step. Johnsen, whose vivid, chaotic drawings represent Bo’s inner life and home life, resists tropes and shows the way children really perceive creative play: Sometimes, you fully turn into a sea otter in the wide ocean, but other times you’re just a kid who is also a sleepy python.”
New York Times/New York Public Library jury, Emily Jenkins

“This book offers a master class in how to sheperd a rambunctious child to bed with patience, creativity and good humor.”
New York Times, Sarah Shun-Iien Bynum

“Every spread makes you go WOW … enthusiastic about life and written in the spirit of children.”
Klassekampen, Silje Bekeng-Flemmen

“How to wrap up the day and to make the intense life of families with young children to be a cosy play? Check out this book…”
Vårt Land, Marianne Lystrup

Charming and beautiful. Perfect for reading aloud for curios children.
Sold in several territories before publication!

Everyone must sleep. The giraffe, the parrot, the walrus, and Bo.

The sea otter sleeps on the open sea, holding hands so they don’t drift away from each other, the meerkats sleep in clusters to keep warm. Bedtime for Bo is a book about little Bo who doesn’t want to go to bed and his mother who tells stories about how the animals sleep to guide Bo from supper, to bathing, to brushing his teeth, to bed and to finally falling asleep.

Watch the video with author Kjersti A. Skomsvold and illustrator Mari Kanstad Johnsen talking about Bedtime for Bo.

Watch the video with illustrator Mari Kanstad Johnsen talking about how she created the character design for little Bo, co-hosted by Society of Illustrators in USA.

Format: 25 cm X 34 cm
Words: 700
Pages: 72

NORLAs selected title spring 2021