Good Night, Baby Animals You’ve Had a Busy Day
A Treasury of Six Original Stories
Written by Karen B. Winnick
Illustrated by Laura Watkins
Henry Holt and Company   01/24/2017
978-0-8050-9883-9
54 pages    Ages 2—5

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“Meet six wild baby animals in this read-aloud storybook collection. Playful baby tigers, elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, pandas, and gorillas love to explore their natural habitats. But when the dashing, splashing, munching, and crunching are done, it’s time for sleep. After all, every baby animal has to rest!

“With its depiction of true-to-life animal behavior, this treasury of original stories is perfect for sharing with any toddler who’s (almost) ready to say good night.” [INSIDE JACKET]

Review
[WC 375]
Good Night, Baby Animals is a collection of six bedtime stories to charm your children to sleep. Each story is about a different animal, keeping to its true nature, which allows young children to learn a few good facts about these six baby animals. In order, children will hear stories about tigers, elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, pandas, and gorilla babies. Many of these animals are recently born, needing to learn their first steps, how to play and explore, and become part of their group of animals.
Baby tigers explore their area, running into fearsome animals before heading back to their den for a meal before bedtime. Elephants learn what their trunk is for by watching and imitating their mother as she sniffs, scratches, stretches, and splashes. Baby giraffes learn to walk on their wobbly legs and stretch their necks up toward the sky to reach their meals. A brave rhino trots next to mama, learning its environment while mistaking objects for other animals. The panda baby wakes and finds a breakfast of bamboo shoots and unwittingly finds itself trapped in the long vines of bamboo. Finally, a baby gorilla thinks only of play as its papa leads the troop to food.

Winnick skillfully uses alliteration, rhyme, repetition, and onomatopoeia to ease children into slumber. Watkins’ mixed media illustrations are true representations of these six animals. She gives children adorable mother-child moments laced with tenderness, love, and many fun moments as these babies grow and learn their way around their habitats. Each of these stories runs 5 spreads (10 pages), followed by a spread of “Animal Facts.” One more story would have made for a complete weeks’ worth of short stories to send children off to sleep, dreaming of these cute baby animals.
Children will love listening to the story of baby gorillas and giraffes, rhinoceroses and elephants, pandas and tigers as they explore, grow, and, after a busy day, sleep. The text is a fun read for parents who will not mind reading these stories over again each week. Read during the day will bring many questions from young children and the perfect opportunity to connect with your child. Good Night, Baby Animals, You’ve Had a Busy Day will become a favorite bedtime read, tenderly sending children into slumber and sweet dreams.

GOOD NIGHT BABY ANIMALS, YOU’VE HAD A BUSY DAY. Text copyright © 2017 by Karen B. Winnick. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Laura Watkins. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Henry Holt and Company, New York, NY.

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Reprinted with permission from GOOD NIGHT BABY ANIMALS, YOU’VE HAD A BUSY DAY © 2017 by Karen B. Winnick, Henry Holt and Company, an imprint of MacMillan Children’s Publishing Group. Illustrations © 2017 by Laura Watkins.

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Copyright © 2017 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved

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Good Night, Baby Animals, You’ve Had a Busy Day
Written by Karen B. Winnick
Illustrated by Laura Watkins
Henry Holt and Company 01/24/2017
9780805098839