Good Night, Sleep Tight: Mem Fox & Judy Horacek

Book: Good Night, Sleep Tight
Author: Mem Fox
Illustrator: Judy Horacek
Pages: 32
Age Range: 3-5

Good Night, Sleep Tight is a fun little bedtime book, chock full of nursery rhymes both well-known and obscure.  Two siblings, Bonnie and Ben, are being looked after by "their favorite babysitter", Skinny Doug. When bedtime comes, Doug relates a series of rhymes to them, like this:

"Good night, sleep tight.
Hope the fleas don't bite!
If they do,
squeeze 'em tight
and they won't bite
another night!"

The kids keep asking for a repetition, and it always goes like this:

"Some other time," said Skinny Doug.
"But I'll tell you another
I heard from my mother:"

And he goes off into another rhyme. The rhymes wind the kids up for a bit, but eventually Skinny Doug slows things down, and Bonnie and Ben go to sleep. 

Horacek's illustrations are fun-filled, and with more detail than the original rhymes suggest. For example, the "It's raining! It's pouring!" story ends with a raincoat-clad man Fred and kids knocking fruitlessly at the door of the old man's little house. In pat-a-cake, Fred and the kids, clad in old-style clothing, purchase the cake from the baker's counter. And so on.

It's nice to see a positive male caregiver dynamic, and a book about two kids experiencing the joy of words. Because the text consists mainly of nursery rhymes, Good Night, Sleep Tight is, of course, perfect for reading aloud. This one belongs on the bedtime reading shelf for preschoolers everywhere. Recommended!

Publisher: Orchard Books (@Scholastic) 
Publication Date: July 30, 2013
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher

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