We are genuinely fond of The Rabbit, the Dark and the Biscuit Tin. Nicola O’Byrne does something with bedtime here that very few other writers attempt.
A rabbit is supposed to go to bed and does not want to. The problem, as the rabbit sees it, is the dark. If the dark were no longer available, bedtime would not apply. So the rabbit has a quiet conversation with the dark and talks it into climbing inside a biscuit tin for the night. The dark, personified and reasonable, agrees.
Which is funny for the first few pages, and then the book starts to earn its place. With the dark locked in the tin, there is no night anywhere in the world. The rabbit realises, slowly, that it has made a bigger problem than the one it was solving. The book then becomes about letting the dark back out on friendly terms.
Most bedtime picture books treat the dark as the enemy. They propose solutions. O’Byrne talks to the dark, gives it a voice, has the rabbit negotiate with it. A child who has been nervous at bedtime reads this and meets the dark on friendlier terms than a threat.
O’Byrne also made Open Very Carefully, the one where the crocodile is eating the book as you read it. If you do not know that book, it is the next thing to get.