Your Own Big Bed

Chip! Chip! Baby sea turtle grew too big for her shell.
And you grew and grew until you were too big for your mother?s tummy.

A little boy learns that the animals around him? at the beach, at the zoo, and on his family?s small farm?are growing bigger and bigger. He is growing too, and soon he leaves his crib for his very own big bed!

From debut author Rita M. Bergstein comes this encouraging story?paired with gentle, luminous illustrations by Susan Kathleen Hartung?about an important milestone in a child?s life.

One Dark Night is Susan’s much anticipated second book with Viking. “I was hooked immediately by this wonderfully told story,” she said. “When I was a kid I used to lie in bed at night and count between the flash and boom to see how close a thunderstorm was. I still do sometimes.” When asked about her inspiration for the illustrations, Susan responded, “Whenever there was a late night storm, I would get up and wander about the house without turning on any lights. I would watch the way the lightening played around the room, or I would just stare out the window and watch it flash in the clouds and make the rain drops shimmer.”

In the fall of 1999, after having lived in Brooklyn, New York, for fourteen years, Susan made the move back to her home state of Michigan, where by chance, she moved to the town of Brooklyn. When not in her studio, Susan can be found renovating her 140-year-old farmhouse, or spending time with family and friends in her nearby hometown of Ann Arbor. Susan lives with her two dogs, Bongo and Audie, and her cat, Gomez.