A companion to Good Night, Sleep Tight! Join Bonnie and Ben as they rhyme their way through the day…until a twinkle, twinkle, little star calls them home.
From Mem Fox and Judy Horacek, the team behind best-selling classics including Ducks Away!, This and That and Where is the Green Sheep?
About
When Mem and I were on a publicity tour for one of our books, I started pestering her to write a companion book to Good Night Sleep Tight. I loved the characters in that books, siblings Bonnie and Ben and their babysitter, Skinny Doug. I knew what they looked like and really wanted to draw them in another book. Plus there were so many more nursery rhymes we could use, Good Night Sleep Tight had barely scratched the surface! We were travelling around Tasmania, visiting different schools, libraries and childcare centres, with the publicist driving, Mem in the front and me in the back. I was looking up lists of nursery rhymes on the web to suggest different ones trying to convince Mem. I really was the annoying kid in the back seat, being bringing up the same thing over and over again. Eventually Mem asked the publicist what she thought of the idea, and the publicist said she thought it was a great idea, so Mem agreed to give it a try. The first draft unsurprisingly had Bonnie and Ben and Skinny Doug on a drive with Bonnie and Ben’s parents – I had serious doubts about my ability to draw lots of pictures of five people in a car in an interesting way. Luckily the text ended up instead with Bonnie and Ben going for a walk with Skinny Doug, waving good bye to their parents in the beginning. They see things on the way that remind them of nursery rhymes – some sheep have them chanting Little Bo Peep, a rose garden introduces Ring a Ring a Rosie. Each time they say a rhyme (there are six in the book), the characters from that rhyme then join them on their walk. There is quite a crowd on the walk by the time they get home to their parents, who join in on the final nursery rhyme, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Like Good Night Sleep Tight, this book ends up with Bonnie and Ben tucked up in bed asleep, a wonderful way for picture books to end.
Availability
Available at all good bookstores or through Booktopia
Editions
Scholastic Australia Pty Limited, Hardback, ISBN: 9781742996240, ISBN-10: 1742996248
Reviews
Magpies Magazine, Volume Thirty-Three
By Tali Lavi
“Mem Fox’s silken rhyme runs out of the reader’s mouth, the simplicity of the text dotted with words like entranced and hesitation. Horacek’s boldly coloured comic style leans towards the comic and joyful. She turns sheep-watching into an art form.“