Since my children were babies, they have all loved to eat, rip, drool on, look at the pictures, read books. I Love books, Especially Children's books.
I started buying them straight after i had my first child.
I use to buy them and put them on the book shelf. Then one day, when my son was old enough to start getting around, i found him sitting by the book shelf with a bunch of books scattered all over the floor,but one in his lap. This became a regular thing. My next two children did the same thing.
As a child and still now, my favourite children's books are Possum Magic and Koala Lou by Mem Fox, So you can only image how excited i was when we were asked to review her newest book 'Good Night Sleep Tight'. It is such a fun, bright, colourful book, filled with entertaining Nursery Rhymes.
The story is about two children, Bonnie and ben. They have a favourite babysitter whose much loved nursery rhymes ensure a wonderful, whimsical world before bedtime.
This book has become our favourite bedtime storybook. My kids are loving one nursery rhymes in particular. It goes 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!
A bit more info about the book;
Goodnight, Sleep Tight was first published in 1988. It had seven nursery rhymes woven into its structure because I’d heard at a literacy conference in South Africa in the early 90s that children who know six nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four are usually in the top reading group at the age of eight. I wanted to make that goal a reality for as many children as possible. (I thought seven rhymes was safer than six!)
But for one reason and another the book was badly produced by a publisher who has since gone out of business. 10,000 copies of the original were pulped, which I found to be a truly horrifying waste, but I wasn’t consulted; nor was I even asked if I’d like to buy any of those copies. And the book was out of print for twenty years.
In late 2010 I was asked to participate in a literary event at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. The convener, Michael Williams, had grown up with the rhymes and repetitions of Goodnight, Sleep Tight. His mother had read it to him endlessly. He told me he no longer had a copy but he now had a baby son of his own and was keen to find a copy of the book. Did I have one he could buy? I said I was sorry but I didn’t. I had only two copies left: one for me and for my own grandson.
He was so desperate he asked if I could at least type out the text for him. I said I’d be happy to. I’m a slow typist so as I was typing it out I was able to stand back, as it were, and see it afresh. I loved it! Hah! What a great text! What if I sent it to my agent again, after all these years in the wilderness?
The long and the short of it is that I re-wrote it slightly (there are now two children, not one) and the magical Judy Horacek agreed to illustrate it very much in the manner of Where Is The Green Sheep? making Goodnight, Sleep Tight into a companion book for that best seller. One of the final illustrations looks as if it’s leapt from the pages of Green Sheep into the new book, thereby making a lovely connection between the two.
Scholastic has been enormously happy to publish Goodnight, Sleep Tight, for which a certain Michael Williams and I will be eternally grateful! I hope, like Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy tale, I have been able to weave straw into gold. I’ll leave you to be the judge of that!
Giveaway has closed!
Now for a GIVEAWAY or 3
I have not 1 but 3 books to giveaway!
The Rules are simple:
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"Win an Awesome child's book called Good Night Sleep Tight written by Mem Fox over @Me_N_my_Monkeys ~ http://www.janedavid99.com/ "
Winners will be Drawn using Random.org on Tuesday the 12th of February 2013.
Sorry guys, Entry is open to Australian Residents only!
Linking up with Jess for some IBOT
Do you have a favourite book you loved as a child and still love now?
What was it called? Share with me! :)
Disclosure: I received the book complimentary, for review purposes only. No financial payment was offered nor accepted for this post. All opinions expressed are purely my own.
