Bedtime for Frances

Summary

Bedtime for Frances is a picture book about a little badger who cannot settle down for the night. At seven o'clock Mother and Father tell Frances it is bedtime, and she begins a string of requests: a glass of milk, a piggyback ride to her room, a kiss from each parent, her teddy bear and her doll, and then another round of kisses. Alone in bed, she sings her own version of the alphabet song, and when she reaches T and thinks of tigers, she is sure there is a tiger in the corner of her room. She goes out to the living room, where her parents are watching television, and Father asks whether the tiger has bitten or scratched her and sends her back to bed. Next she sees a giant in the room. This time Father lets her have a piece of cake but not television, and tells her to ask the giant what he wants; the giant turns out to be her bathrobe on a chair. Then she worries about a crack in the ceiling, and Father inspects it and assures her it is too small for anything bad to come out of. When the curtains move she fears that something is coming to get her. Father explains that the wind has a job, blowing the curtains, that his own job is to go to work in the morning and so he must sleep, and that Frances's job is to go to sleep; if she gets up again, he says, she will get a spanking. When she hears a thumping at the window, Frances stops at her bedroom door, thinks it over, and goes to look for herself: it is only a moth bumping against the glass. With nothing left to fear, she goes back to bed, and at last she falls asleep. Harper published the book in 1960 with drawings by Garth Williams. It was the first of Hoban's Frances books; later titles such as Bread and Jam for Frances (1964) were illustrated by Lillian Hoban.

Top Lessons

• Fears can be checked

  Each thing that frightens Frances turns out to be ordinary: a bathrobe, a small crack, the wind, a moth. By the end she looks for herself instead of running to her parents. The book shows young children that night fears shrink when you look at them calmly.

• Everybody has work to do

  Father tells Frances that the wind has a job, he has a job, and her job is to sleep. The idea helps her see bedtime not as a punishment but as her part in the family's day.

• Parents who are kind and firm

  Father and Mother give Frances milk, kisses, cake and answers, but Father finally tells her plainly that she must stay in bed. The story shows love that is patient and also sets limits.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The book is a familiar picture of ordinary childhood bedtime resistance and night fears rather than illness. It is sometimes used by parents and teachers to talk about bedtime routines and fears of the dark. Father's approach (answering each fear, explaining the cause of the moving curtains, then setting a firm limit) and Frances's final step of checking the noise for herself can be read alongside later advice on settling young children, but the book makes no medical claims, and any clinical reading is the reader's own.

• Bedtime requests

  Frances's chain of requests for milk, piggyback, kisses, bear and doll before she will lie down.

• Tiger, giant, crack and curtains

  Successive night fears, each answered by Father, ending in his explanation that everyone has a job.