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A Child's Good Night Book
Night is coming and small things without words are going to sleep . . . sleepy bunnies, sleepy birds, and sleepy children, too, are getting under their covers. "Jean Charlot's illustrations are first-rate." —NYT. Barbara Bader called this 1943 book, now restored to its original size and format, "the first of the true bedtime books." 1944 Caldecott Honor Book
22 pages, Board Book
First published January 1, 1943
4 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Wise Brown
393 books1,210 followersMargaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of books and stories during her life, but she is best known for Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Even though she died nearly 70 years ago, her books still sell very well.
Margaret loved animals. Most of her books have animals as characters in the story. She liked to write books that had a rhythm to them. Sometimes she would put a hard word into the story or poem. She thought this made children think harder when they are reading.
She wrote all the time. There are many scraps of paper where she quickly wrote down a story idea or a poem. She said she dreamed stories and then had to write them down in the morning before she forgot them.
She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a story, which often isn't the same way an adult would tell a story. She also taught illustrators to draw the way a child saw things. One time she gave two puppies to someone who was going to draw a book with that kind of dog. The illustrator painted many pictures one day and then fell asleep. When he woke up, the papers he painted on were bare. The puppies had licked all the paint off the paper.
Margaret died after surgery for a bursting appendix while in France. She had many friends who still miss her. They say she was a creative genius who made a room come to life with her excitement. Margaret saw herself as something else - a writer of songs and nonsense.
Margaret loved animals. Most of her books have animals as characters in the story. She liked to write books that had a rhythm to them. Sometimes she would put a hard word into the story or poem. She thought this made children think harder when they are reading.
She wrote all the time. There are many scraps of paper where she quickly wrote down a story idea or a poem. She said she dreamed stories and then had to write them down in the morning before she forgot them.
She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a story, which often isn't the same way an adult would tell a story. She also taught illustrators to draw the way a child saw things. One time she gave two puppies to someone who was going to draw a book with that kind of dog. The illustrator painted many pictures one day and then fell asleep. When he woke up, the papers he painted on were bare. The puppies had licked all the paint off the paper.
Margaret died after surgery for a bursting appendix while in France. She had many friends who still miss her. They say she was a creative genius who made a room come to life with her excitement. Margaret saw herself as something else - a writer of songs and nonsense.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
June 15, 2018
A book talking about how animals sleep. ex. fish sleep with their eyes open.
There is a prayer at the end of the book.
Decent art and a simple story.
There is a prayer at the end of the book.
Decent art and a simple story.
September 25, 2020
So yes, I actually have very very much enjoyed Margaret Wise Brown's 1943 A Child's Good Night Book (and 1944 Caldecott Honour designation for illustrator Jean Charlot) and indeed even rather more than her 1947 but also considerably more universally famous Goodnight Moon (and that is indeed saying quite a lot coming from me, since until today, Goodnight Moon had obviously and most definitely been my hands down favourite Margaret Wise Brown picture book offering, and by a very long shot at that).
Because aside from Margaret Wise Brown's presented text being a delightfully calmingly repetitive "go to sleep" song for very young children (with all kinds of both diverse animals and even a few select vehicles depicted as ceasing their daily hustle and bustle to rest, to fall asleep, until finally, after having said their prayers, children are also resting in bed and ready to nod off so to speak, absolutely and totally giving young readers or perhaps more to the point young listeners a wonderfully calming and relaxing lullaby imbued with a strong but softly and tenderly delivered message of and for quietude and serenity), Jean Charlot's accompanying pictures for A Child's Good Night Book, they are indeed visually, aesthetically quite as relaxing and quite as calming and as warm-heartedly shown as the author's, as Margaret Wise Brown's printed words (and with a colour scheme that to me also automatically says to sleep well, to relax and to let yourself go, and in fact much more so than the bright and often rather garish colours which Clement Hurd makes use of in his pictures for Goodnight Moon which I for one sometimes do think could wake children up instead of relaxing and calming them down).
A wonderful and totally successful combination of text and images is A Child's Good Night Book and even after all of this time (after over seventy years) still highly recommended as a goodnight and sleep tight picture book, with my only caveat being that the ending of A Child's Good Night Book does show (both textually and illustratively) young children saying their prayers (and that this might perhaps be considered inappropriate by families who are atheist or who have issues with Christianity).
Because aside from Margaret Wise Brown's presented text being a delightfully calmingly repetitive "go to sleep" song for very young children (with all kinds of both diverse animals and even a few select vehicles depicted as ceasing their daily hustle and bustle to rest, to fall asleep, until finally, after having said their prayers, children are also resting in bed and ready to nod off so to speak, absolutely and totally giving young readers or perhaps more to the point young listeners a wonderfully calming and relaxing lullaby imbued with a strong but softly and tenderly delivered message of and for quietude and serenity), Jean Charlot's accompanying pictures for A Child's Good Night Book, they are indeed visually, aesthetically quite as relaxing and quite as calming and as warm-heartedly shown as the author's, as Margaret Wise Brown's printed words (and with a colour scheme that to me also automatically says to sleep well, to relax and to let yourself go, and in fact much more so than the bright and often rather garish colours which Clement Hurd makes use of in his pictures for Goodnight Moon which I for one sometimes do think could wake children up instead of relaxing and calming them down).
A wonderful and totally successful combination of text and images is A Child's Good Night Book and even after all of this time (after over seventy years) still highly recommended as a goodnight and sleep tight picture book, with my only caveat being that the ending of A Child's Good Night Book does show (both textually and illustratively) young children saying their prayers (and that this might perhaps be considered inappropriate by families who are atheist or who have issues with Christianity).
May 10, 2019
Celebrated children's author Margaret Wise Brown, creator of such childhood classics as
Goodnight Moon
and
The Runaway Bunny
, here delivers a sweet little bedtime tale, one which will lull little children to sleep with its gentle text and charming artwork. As night comes on, the book presents little children with a series of animals who seek their rest, from sleepy sheep to sleepy pussycats, culminating with children who say their prayers and go to bed. The book concludes with a little prayer: "Dear Father, hear and bless / Thy beasts and singing birds, / And guard with tenderness / Small things that have no words."
Chosen as a Caldecott Honor Book in 1944 - other titles to be selected that year include Small Rain: Verses from the Bible , Pierre Pidgeon , The Mighty Hunter and The Good-Luck Horse - this little book has lots of quiet appeal. The text is repetitive but engaging, slowly building up the sense of sleepiness with each scene, and the lithograph artwork is charming. The picture of the sleeping pussycats was particularly adorable! With the caveat that non-religious families will want to be aware that this book closes with a prayer, and make their decisions about reading it accordingly, I recommend A Child's Good Night Book to those looking for bedtime books for little ones.
Chosen as a Caldecott Honor Book in 1944 - other titles to be selected that year include Small Rain: Verses from the Bible , Pierre Pidgeon , The Mighty Hunter and The Good-Luck Horse - this little book has lots of quiet appeal. The text is repetitive but engaging, slowly building up the sense of sleepiness with each scene, and the lithograph artwork is charming. The picture of the sleeping pussycats was particularly adorable! With the caveat that non-religious families will want to be aware that this book closes with a prayer, and make their decisions about reading it accordingly, I recommend A Child's Good Night Book to those looking for bedtime books for little ones.
August 26, 2020
We are huge Margaret Wise Brown fans in the Lauderdale house.
September 19, 2014
This is a very old book won caldecott in 1944. I borrow it from the library. From my side, I like this book very much.
The book does not have a lot of colorful pictures or very fancy words. It describes seventeen different things when they are in sleeping status. These seventeen things not only include living things such as kangaroos, children and bunnies, but also non-living things like houses, sailboats and cars. The writer is very careful with the description about the whole world things when they are in sleeping status.
The book is an old picture book. Pictures in this book are simple and easy. As for the page version, basically, there are pictures and story contents on each page. Crayons and color pens are used for the pictures. The pictures are not vivid like those presented in contemporary storybooks. But, words in this storybook are very simple and vivid. What is more, suitable colors are used in this picture book. Basically, the background color of the whole book is green. Usually, green is associated with nature and it can let people calm down. So, it fits the name of this book. In general, this picture book is featured with simple pictures, which match its theme very well. Also, sweet words and short sentences also fit for the kids to read.
The book does not have a lot of colorful pictures or very fancy words. It describes seventeen different things when they are in sleeping status. These seventeen things not only include living things such as kangaroos, children and bunnies, but also non-living things like houses, sailboats and cars. The writer is very careful with the description about the whole world things when they are in sleeping status.
The book is an old picture book. Pictures in this book are simple and easy. As for the page version, basically, there are pictures and story contents on each page. Crayons and color pens are used for the pictures. The pictures are not vivid like those presented in contemporary storybooks. But, words in this storybook are very simple and vivid. What is more, suitable colors are used in this picture book. Basically, the background color of the whole book is green. Usually, green is associated with nature and it can let people calm down. So, it fits the name of this book. In general, this picture book is featured with simple pictures, which match its theme very well. Also, sweet words and short sentences also fit for the kids to read.
September 4, 2025
It was okay. There are bedtime stories I like more.
Ages: 1 - 4
Here’s a few of our bedtime favs: watch my reel!
Content Considerations: nothing to note.
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Ages: 1 - 4
Here’s a few of our bedtime favs: watch my reel!
Content Considerations: nothing to note.
**Like my reviews? Then you should follow me! Because I have hundreds more just like this one. With each review, I provide Content Considerations, mentioning any objectionable content I come across so that parents and/or conscientious readers (like me) can determine beforehand whether they want to read a book or not. Content surprises are super annoying, especially when you’re 100+ pages in, so here’s my attempt to help you avoid that!
If you’re considering a book or looking for a new title to read, check out my highly categorized shelves, read my reviews and Friend or Follow me to spiff up your feed with clean, wholesome, living books.
I have an Instagram account that’s pretty bookishly unique too!
October 5, 2017
This bedtime book is one of my favorite Caldecott books. The repetitive text and some of the illustrations really remind me of Kevin Henkes’s Little White Rabbit, which I frequently share in story time. This would make a good story time book as well, with its soft colors and short sentences. The only thing that might keep from reading it would be that the story ends with a prayer and depicts a pair of angels watching over the child while he sleeps. That wouldn’t be appropriate in a public library setting, even if I do love the thought of asking God to guard “small things that have no words.” This is also a nice read-alike for another Margaret Wise Brown picture book, The Fathers Are Coming Home.
January 26, 2013
Nice book to the end day, even for us older readers. The colored-pencil drawings, mostly of animals, are stylized but a little heavy, with lots of eyes shut (except for the owl, cat and fish). The large typeface matches the illustrations well. My son regularly reads a more recent edition to our grandson and was surprised to find additional pages in the 1943 edition (bees and squirrels. The book closes with two children saying their prayers, followed by a prayer accompanying large, strong-and-commanding-looking angels, surprisingly atypical for this kind of book, as they bless the children, fish, sheep and more. (Read again in February 2013)
July 19, 2014
Favorite Illustration: The first page spread showing the house and all of the animals outside in the tree, sky, field, and pond.
It's night time, and all of the small animals and children are curling up and going to sleep. This is a sweet little story book showing many different animals at the end of the day. I also love the small prayer at the end. I couldn't get any of the other Honor books from 1944 from my library, but when compared to the Caldecott winner, Many Moons, I would have chosen this one.
It's night time, and all of the small animals and children are curling up and going to sleep. This is a sweet little story book showing many different animals at the end of the day. I also love the small prayer at the end. I couldn't get any of the other Honor books from 1944 from my library, but when compared to the Caldecott winner, Many Moons, I would have chosen this one.
January 22, 2009
Brown brings the same rhythmic pace to A Child's Good Night Book as to Goodnight Moon. We much prefer this book to Runaway Bunny or My World, though for some reason people tend to know of those and not this one. As she describes sleepy birds, sheep, sailboats, and wild monkeys, all of our eyes begin to droop. We also like the prayer on the last page, much better than the old "if I die before I wake" standard from my childhood.
August 16, 2013
A delightful discovery. Just as good (or better) than the more well known Goodnight Moon. A gentle bedtime book that ends with a nice prayer. The picture of the angels holding the animals and sleeping children at the end was a little off to me, but otherwise, a charming book for the very young.
July 4, 2016
Loved reading this to my toddler - very few words, each page a closeup illustration - showing how everything was settling down for the night to go to sleep. Dark outside the house, the birds go to sleep in the nest, etc. Love the page where the angel encloses all the sleepy animals in it's wings while they sleep. Very soothing calm book to read before bedtime. Highly recommend!
December 7, 2016
One of my favorite children's books by one of my favorite authors. I discovered it after my second child was born, and remember reading it to her while rocking and nursing her when she used to wake up in the middle of the night.
January 10, 2012
Cute, simple and very well illustrated. I really like the simplicity of both the words and the pictures. Very soothing, relaxing bedtime book for young children.
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February 26, 2016A Caldecott Honor book that has loving phrases and sentences to paint a picture of everything settling down, quieting through the night in preparation for the release that sleep brings.
January 13, 2018
Beautiful combination of text and illustrations.
September 28, 2020
Read on openlibrary. Not sure why, but something didn't work for me. No arc, and of course since we're atheists the ending doesn't wrap things up for us, so it's just a simple chant. The illustrations have a certain charm, but as far as I can tell from the scanned copy, they don't quite work for me either. Oh well.
November 21, 2016
Mostly innocuous but uninteresting.
A highly repetitive book, which is par for the course from Margaret Wise Brown. *Every single animal in the frigging world* is going to sleep. Kangaroos. Fish. Birds. Cats. Rabbits. Airplanes. Lions, who apparently live in a forest, and don't eat the monkeys who sleep next to them. At the very end, the children say their prayers and go to sleep. And there's a little tiny prayer at the end of the book.
Bor-ing. I guess it's from the school of thought that in order to get your kid to go to sleep, you need to read them a bedtime story, so you might as well read them the most boring story imaginable so that it will bore them to sleep. The illustrations aren't really all that interesting. It looks like the artist was trying to draw these animals, but hadn't actually seen some of them before. The lion looks more like a weird, misshapen dog. It even has a bone, like a dog. These animals don't look realistic at all.
For more children's book reviews, see my website at http://www.drttmk.com.
A highly repetitive book, which is par for the course from Margaret Wise Brown. *Every single animal in the frigging world* is going to sleep. Kangaroos. Fish. Birds. Cats. Rabbits. Airplanes. Lions, who apparently live in a forest, and don't eat the monkeys who sleep next to them. At the very end, the children say their prayers and go to sleep. And there's a little tiny prayer at the end of the book.
Bor-ing. I guess it's from the school of thought that in order to get your kid to go to sleep, you need to read them a bedtime story, so you might as well read them the most boring story imaginable so that it will bore them to sleep. The illustrations aren't really all that interesting. It looks like the artist was trying to draw these animals, but hadn't actually seen some of them before. The lion looks more like a weird, misshapen dog. It even has a bone, like a dog. These animals don't look realistic at all.
For more children's book reviews, see my website at http://www.drttmk.com.
July 9, 2015
Good night everyone!
Sleepy little book about everyone who is ready for some rest at the end of the day. While the text is something I enjoyed - it's nice to get away from forced rhyme schemes all the time - the illustrations were, to me, distracting and not what I would have enjoyed for the book. While I have nothing against colored pencils, this still comes off as a little too 'bright' for the winding down and sleeping. And I'm not even sure what the picture is supposed to be about that puts a sleeping child and a sleeping fish next to each other. I like the prayer at the end, as it's a natural way to move from storytime into bedtime prayers. But overall, because I don't care much for the illustration style, I'll give this one 3.5 stars.
Sleepy little book about everyone who is ready for some rest at the end of the day. While the text is something I enjoyed - it's nice to get away from forced rhyme schemes all the time - the illustrations were, to me, distracting and not what I would have enjoyed for the book. While I have nothing against colored pencils, this still comes off as a little too 'bright' for the winding down and sleeping. And I'm not even sure what the picture is supposed to be about that puts a sleeping child and a sleeping fish next to each other. I like the prayer at the end, as it's a natural way to move from storytime into bedtime prayers. But overall, because I don't care much for the illustration style, I'll give this one 3.5 stars.
September 2, 2012
This book won a 1944 Caldecott Honor award, and I like it better than "Goodnight Moon" (which I've always thought was over-rated). This book is also a bedtime story, and as you read along, all sorts of animals, birds, fish and finally children get sleepy and go to bed. I enjoyed the prayer at the end: "Dear Father, hear and bless thy beasts and singing birds, and guard with tenderness small things that have no words." Compared to "Goodnight Moon," this book has better illustrations, done with hand-drawn lithographic plates by Parisian artist Jean Charlot, who also illustrated another Wise Brown book entitled "Two Little Trains." Recommended for ages 1-6, 3 stars.
December 31, 2017
• 1944 Caldecott Honor Book •
I’m not really a fan of the colored pencil look, and some of these drawings - especially of the people - are kind of creepy. I like the concept of this: here’s some fish, the fish are going to sleep; here’s some kangaroos, the kangaroos are going to sleep; etc. I’m just not a fan of the way the art was executed. The book ends with a prayer for animals and “small things that have no words” which I liked though.
Materials used: unlisted
Typeface used: unlisted
I’m not really a fan of the colored pencil look, and some of these drawings - especially of the people - are kind of creepy. I like the concept of this: here’s some fish, the fish are going to sleep; here’s some kangaroos, the kangaroos are going to sleep; etc. I’m just not a fan of the way the art was executed. The book ends with a prayer for animals and “small things that have no words” which I liked though.
Materials used: unlisted
Typeface used: unlisted
November 26, 2008
The story line wasn't amazing or anything, but it was simple and I imagine, enjoyable to a child. The pictures were unique and I liked the subtle color schemes, bright, but not too bright to detract from your sleepiness. This is a sweet little book for children.
*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2008...
*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2008...
January 14, 2012
The layout and style of this book remind me of current books by Henkes like Little White Rabbit or A Good Day.
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February 2, 2012Caldecott Honor 1944 - In doing this Caldecott Challenge it has been interesting to see how the books have changed over the years but to also see what books were a bit ahead of the times in some ways. This book seems like a child's book whereas some seem more like they weren't really written for children.
May 26, 2012
A bedtime book in which various animals are shown sleeping in their own unique ways (example: fish sleep with their eyes open). Each page of text closes with the same refrain. Illustrations are in full color and do well supporting the peacefulness of the text. A wordless 2 page spread near the end shows 2 angels holding all of God's creatures as they sleep and the book ends with a short prayer.
April 18, 2016
Well it is not Good Night Moon, but this is another nice bedtime story by Margaret Wise Brown. It has a nice soothing tone and definitely evokes getting ready for bed. I read both a reproduction of the first edition and an enlarged edition. I much preferred the smaller first edition as the illustrations and text seem to go together better and I prefer it as it was originally intended.
December 17, 2014
A fairly old child's bedtime book which is all about trying to get a child to sleep. The text is surprisingly long winded and un-rhyming. The art is pretty good but not exceptional. For our family the children-say-their-prayers would make this book a non-starter. But otherwise this is an okay book. But I expect more from a Caldecott Honor book.
September 30, 2009
This book is a slam dunk for consideration as the perfect book to use in putting small toddlers to bed, at least for some personalities of child. The way that the words are shaped just gives out an intrinsic feeling of languid sleepiness...I would give this book one and a half stars.
Currently reading
January 30, 2009everyone goes to sleep. Sleepy pussy cats. Sleepy birds. Sleepy children. Sleepy I can't remember. Quiet sail boats. Quiet engines.
February 12, 2012
Favorite illustration - p. 3
Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews