Midnight Mimi

Jean Free is a retired teacher-librarian and library consultant in
Whitby, Ontario.

Mimi finds sleeping “simply boring” and would “rather do anything
than sleep away the night and miss the moonlight magic.” So, she
pretends her room is a palace or tunnel, and she becomes a werewolf, a
firefly, or a witch’s cat. Then she goes on her midnight adventure of
feeding magic brews to her goldfish to make them whistle or teaching her
pet rabbit to dance as her stuffed toys stampede wildly around her
bedroom.

Imaginative illustrations by award-winning author-illustrator
Marie-Louise Gay change from black-and-white moonlit drawings to
colorful, lively pictures full of movement, humor, and excitement as
Mimi careens riotously with her toys on their “way-past-midnight”
adventures. Gay’s open-ended poem leaves little sister Marie, who
shares Mimi’s room, safe in bed while Mimi skis off for what the
reader is certain will be another magical adventure with her toy
friends.

Midnight Mimi is a perfect read-aloud for young children before
bedtime, and one certain to encourage a child’s imagination; it is
also a book to be examined many times for its creative illustrations and
reread for its inventive rhymes about the escapades of its young female
protagonist. Highly recommended.