Eva's Book Review- April

Sometimes our book selections have a theme, sometimes not.  This month, in addition to French books and the ever present Fancy Nancy collection, we focused on sleeping or bedtime stories. 

1. Princess Says Goodnight by Naomi Howland
This a pretty well liked book that talks about a fancy little girl who believes herself to be a princess.  She even sees herself in a crown and fancy dress when she looks in the mirror, even though she's really just wearing PJ's.  It's a rhyming book and pretty easy to follow along with, so Eva's a fan. 

2. The Napping House by Audrey Wood

This book is one that repeats/adds/whatever the heck you call it when it starts with one sentence and then the second sentence which repeats the first then 3rd + 2nd + 1st sentence and so on.  It's actually a really cute book and Eva loves to interrupt (Interrupting Chicken anyone?) and ask questions like, "Why is the Granny a Granny and not a Baba?" or "Where's the Daddy?"  I love that she sooo concerened with there being no Mommy in the book.... (insert sarcasm) 

3. A Night Night Prayer by Amy Parker

This is not a library book, we received it as a gift from a dear family friend for Eva's 1st birthday and we've read it on and off over the years.  It's a very sweet book that goes through saying "night night" to all of God's creations and ends with what could almost be a routine bedtime prayer, "God, Thank you for the trees, the birds, the sun that shines above. And thank you most of all dear God, for watching us with love. Night night God."

4. Knuffle Bunny Too A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Williams

This book is about a little girl and her stuffed bunny.  She loves the thing so much she brings it to school for show & tell and finds that another girl in her class has the same bunny.  They argue over whose is better until the teacher takes both of them away.  They get them back after class but, as luck would have it, the bunnies were swapped!  Of course the little girls don't realize this until the middle of the night and then cannot fall back asleep with the wrong bunny in their bed.  So they force their dads to walk them across their NY city neighborhood at 3:00am to make the exchange.  It's actually a pretty cute book and I love that the kids in the class/neighborhood are ethnically diverse. 

5. The Day the Babies Crawled Away by Peggy Rathmann

I love this book!  It's not reeeally a bedtime story but the babies in it do take a nap at one point, so I'll include it in this month's review.  It's a Caldecott award winning book about the babies of a town crawling away during the middle of a fair and only a little boy sees it.  He follows the babies through different goofy obstacles and eventually gets them all back home safely.  My favorite part is the illustration, it is all done in the silhouette style like the cover pictured below so it really forces the reader to study every scene to see exactly what mischief the babies are getting into.  Eva loves the book because a little kid is the hero and she's always a fan of rhymes.

"Remember the way
They followed you home that day?
Through the cave and the trees,
On their brave, little knees,
Waving "bye-bye"
To the bats and the bees-
OKAY!
What a day
When the babies crawled away!"