Little Rose Redberry’s bedtime routine involves a drink, which leads to a sudden wakeup later when she needs to “pee so bad.” Easier said than done. Rose’s boisterous, colourful bedroom is fraught with danger. A cabbage- and-liver-scented witch reaches with clawed hands in black fingerless gloves for the little girl, a snake hisses behind Rose’s bed, bats flap in the night air, even the tree outside the window scowls menacingly. Artist Mireille Levert’s illustrations are in the same joyful, playful and highly original style that she used in the superb Mrs. Ming series (Jeremiah and Mrs. Ming won a GG) and Little Red Riding HoodM. The evil elements are genuinely frightening – the clawed witch with green drops coming from her nose, a sinister vampire declaring “I’d love to taste your royal throat,” and an ogre with horrible tools hanging from his belt. It’s a jarring combination, and not the most calming bedtime story for all children, but the artwork is captivating and Rose is the picture of spunk. Her reward is exactly as it should be:

“At last I am here, finally I’m free

And now, how wonderful, I can pee.”

Her journey, short but essential, comes to a happy close in a witchless, ogreless red and yellow bathroom.

Unfortunately, the writing doesn’t succeed in the way the illustrations do. The rhyming couplets falter too often, and many patches in Rose by Night needed better editing, such as the puzzling:

“I hide my feet so she won’t eat them up,

That old witch, battle ax,

Smelly socks in a cup.”

However, the appeal of Rose, and Levert’s delightful, offbeat artwork, will thoroughly absorb a young child’s attention.