This Monday was the one-year anniversary of the Pajama Storytime program I started last fall. Some excited loyal regulars came in their jammies and slippers with their stuffed animals, and a brand-new family came too (they heard about it from a grandparent who visits the library weekly). We had cocoa and cookies and read some new books and some old favorites:

• All At Once Upon A Time by Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Gladys Jose
• Sleep: How Nature Gets Its Rest by Kate Prendergast
• Cub’s Big World by Sarah Thomson, illustrated by Joe Cepeda
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (yes, everyone’s read it before; no, we hadn’t read it at Pajama Storytime yet. And I just read this cool article about it by picture book makers Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett. Pay attention to the moon!)
• Hoodwinked by Arthur Howard
• Endlessly Ever After: Pick Your Path to Countless Fairy Tale Endings! by Laurel Snyder and Dan Santat

Endlessly Ever After has become a mandatory staple since last December; it’s the book we always end with, but it’s different every time because of its pick-your-path nature. (Our storytime group is beyond excited that there is going to be another one in, I think, 2026? Laurel and Dan, if you need beta readers, we are at your service.)

Here are a few other books we’ve read more than once at Pajama Storytime:

• Dim Sum Palace by X. Fang (this has Night Kitchen vibes)
• The Yawns Are Coming by Christopher Eliopoulos
• Goodnight Veggies by Diana Murray and Zachariah Ohora
• Night in the City by Julie Downing
• Tell Me What to Dream About by Giselle Potter
• Telling Stories Wrong by Gianni Rodari and Beatrice Alemagna
• Are You Awake? by Sophie Blackall
• Knight Owl by Christopher Denise
• Just Because by Mac Barnett and Isabelle Arsenault



• The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess by Tom Gauld
• If You Come to Earth by Sophie Blackall
• Inside the Slidy Diner by Laurel Snyder and Jaime Zollars
• Mama in the Moon by Doreen and Brian Cronin
• There’s a ___ in Your Book by Tom Fletcher

As you can see, we lean toward bedtime books and fairy tales, including fractured fairy tales. I can already tell All at Once Upon A Time is going to be a repeat read; it goes so well with Endlessly, and the kids – and grown-ups! – who come to Pajama Storytime are old enough to understand and enjoy the humor. That’s something I love about Pajama Storytime: I get to read some wonderful books that are simply too long or complex for my morning storytime, which is mostly toddlers. There are great picture books for that age, too, and I love them, but Pajama Storytime lets me share more books with a different audience.

Allons-y! But not next week, the library will be closed on Monday for Indigenous Peoples’ Day.