A sweetly simple bedtime book with a reassuring message.
A young child’s bedtime anxiety is quelled as familiar friends take turns saying goodnight.
Tucked in bed with a flashlight, Bob looks out the window to a crescent Moon, who smiles down and says, “Goodnight Bob.” Alone in the dark, Bob sees two round, white eyes glow, and when he shines his flashlight, Fish appears in his bowl and also says goodnight. This pattern repeats as each successive pair of white eyes in the dark turns into a cat, dog, mouse, Bigfoot (outside the window), and the stars in the night sky. The simple, predictable text will have children chiming in quickly: “Bob saw two eyes. / It was Dog. ‘Goodnight Bob,’ said Dog. / Bob saw two eyes. / It was Mouse. ‘Goodnight Bob,’ said Mouse.” Finally settled in and with eyes closed, Bob is asleep as the moon and stars give another goodbye and the footprints of Bigfoot recede down the path from the house. The simplicity of this repetitive story is accentuated by the primitive cartoonish pastel drawings in primary colors. Bob is a very young Charlie Brown–type figure with light skin, two dotted eyes, a circle nose, and four bristly lines for hair atop his very round head. Bold white text against a dark blue nocturnal background facilitates repeat reads.
A sweetly simple bedtime book with a reassuring message. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-3003-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
What better way to deal with baby monsters than to tuck them safely into bed? Little monsters will try to put off the...
A board book for older toddlers who like pretending to be just a little bit scared.
Young children will recognize themselves and their bedtime routines in the four-line rhymes that appear on verso, describing spread by spread eight monsters that they may soon meet in more menacing contexts. On the facing page, graphically designed toddler versions of each monster exhibit their defining characteristics. A square-headed “Frankenbaby” with bolts in his neck wears training pants, while a green zombie baby in a high chair has taken a bite out of the head of a gingerbread boy. An equally green adult zombie proffers a sippy cup. Similarly, a vampire girl hanging upside down from a shower-curtain rod is offered a pink toothbrush for her fangs. A small mummy brings a pile of books on outstretched arms to mama mummy for a “bed-tomb story.” “Loch Nessie,” “wolfboy,” “little Bigfoot,” and a pair of purple “gleeful goblins” round out the cast. The final pages show all the monsters in silhouette under a full yellow moon as they march off to bed in a backyard tent.
What better way to deal with baby monsters than to tuck them safely into bed? Little monsters will try to put off the inevitable bedtime with the demand, “read it again.” (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-10559-9
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
A silly and surprising picture book that will quickly join regular rotation.
A monster looks for a snack.
Preschooler Pete is playing cars in his bedroom when a purple-furred, horned, and snaggle-toothed monster peers through the window. Pete invites the monster to play, but the monster’s intentions are made clear by the thought bubble hovering over his head: This monster wants to “EAT PETE!” Luckily for Pete, this monster is easily distracted and decides that “playing cars looked like fun.” Pete and the monster cheerfully race cars, play pirates, and build with blocks together; each time they switch activities, the monster first thinks about eating Pete and then decides to play. But this doesn’t last long: By the book’s middle, the monster does in fact eat Pete, the act presaged by a moment when the monster’s enormous, drooling face occupies the entire double-page spread just behind oblivious, smiling Pete. But after that? Playing alone is not so much fun. Rex smartly teases out the will-he, won’t-he just long enough for readers to assume it’ll never happen before shocking little ones with the deed. A happy ending awaits, but little readers will be briefly flabbergasted and quite giggly. Rex’s clean-lined cartoons are beautifully paced, the monster looming over the round-headed white boy and then pulling back again and again before a nearly wordless spread in which the monster sits, satisfied, one hand on his tummy before his final change of heart.
A silly and surprising picture book that will quickly join regular rotation. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-3880-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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