My daughter loves Say Goodnight to the Sleepy Animals! with its touch and feel animals and its simple, repetitive, rhyming text. It’s a perfect bedtime read for the littlest of people.
The Story: Cat goes for an evening walk and says goodnight to all the animals. She returns home to say goodnight to her kittens who are already fast asleep.
Say Goodnight to the Sleepy Animals! is great for introducing birds and animals to toddlers and very young children. Each animal responds which gives the child the chance to join in and reinforces the vocabulary for animal sounds. The repetitive, rhyming text is easy to read and it’s good for beginner readers, now that my daughter is older she likes to ‘read’ it to herself. I like the fact that the text also includes questions as this gives the child the opportunity to become more involved in the reading. All of the animals are shown on the final double page spread and the child is invited to say goodnight to everyone again which is great for reinforcing what they have already read.
Each page is a beautifully illustrated double spread and a pink sunrise gives way to a starry night which gives an older child the opportunity to talk about what happens when the sun goes down in the evening. The adorable animals (including those on the front cover) are soft and furry to touch. They are animals that children will be familiar with and they all have friendly expressions on their faces (although now that my daughter is older she has talked about the fact that cats are not usually friendly with mice and birds!).
I have read this story in the classroom to children who are not native English speakers as it is a great story for introducing animal vocabulary. We have also used the book for counting practice, we count the baby birds and kittens and one day my daughter counted all the animals’ ears!
Say Goodnight to the Sleepy Animals is a lovely bedtime story which is great to just snuggle up to listen to or to become more involved with. I also like stroking the animals as I read!
Age Range: 2 +
Author: Ian Whybrow / Illustrator: Ed Eaves
There are also ‘Hello’ books in the same series.
Leave a Reply