Such a special evening! Even the most restless reader will find peace and quiet in this breathtakingly illustrated book about the magic of nature, nighttime, and a duck who can’t sleep. Inspired by a poem by the legendary writer E.B. White, his granddaughter, Martha, and two-time Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet, have joined their formidable talents to create The Duck Can’t Sleep.

As Martha writes in the Foreword, her grandfather “was a man who worked out his word tangles or life’s conundrums by perambulating, and he was never a sound sleeper…He loved to find solitude and undisturbed nature in the midst of the urban landscape.” In 1928, White wrote a poem originally titled “Natura in Urbe” (“Nature in the City,”) which was published in The New Yorker. The poem tells the enchanting story of White’s walking around the reservoir in New York City’s Central Park and observing “a little duck swim by.”

Melissa’s colorful, whimsical, collage-like illustrations are spellbinding. The cover art alone “demands” that The Duck be displayed face out on a bookshelf. Melissa’s work graces every page of this small book and invites readers to linger, listen, and look.

The Duck Can’t Sleep is a small, comforting, huggable, and exquisitely illustrated love letter to nature in unlikely places and a testament to the power of imagination. We predict The Duck Can’t Sleep will be one of our shop’s most popular holiday gifts.