Sensational full color animal paintings ensure this book will be a favorite at a bedside near you. First, you see a curly brown-haired tot in jammies playing with a big stuffed alligator and raccoon. Turn the page and there’s a massive, green, toothy crocodile papa, looking lovingly at his just-hatched baby croc, still curled in its broken shell. The simple rhyming text, just two lines per page, begins, "How do you make a baby smile? Grin like Papa Crocodile." Keep on turning to see how the other animals make their babies smile, coo, and grin, from Mama Elephant wiggling her floppy gray ear to Daddy Raccoon playing peekaboo in the garbage can. On the last pages, the child’s smiling Mama gathers up her little boy and all of his toys and tucks them “snug in bed.” All of the suggested movements in the story are ones babies and toddlers can do with you: shaking their horns, twisting their necks, or making faces. Looking for a new companion to Margaret Wise Brown’s classic bedtime story, Goodnight, Moon? Put this one on your list.


Themes: ANIMALS—INFANCY. BABIES. BEDTIME STORIES. PARENT AND CHILD. STORIES IN RHYME.