Good Night, Gorilla
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the Page Grabbers stage.
Why it fits Page Grabbers (for young toddlers who treat books as things to do)
A gorilla pickpockets the zookeeper's keys and leads every animal home to bed. Nearly wordless, so toddlers narrate it themselves. The balloon hidden on every page is a legendary find.
What makes it special
Rathmann tells the whole heist in pictures, so the toddler becomes the narrator — the highest promotion in reading. Her muted nighttime palette with the traveling pink balloon rewards the tenth read as much as the first. Wordless storytelling builds exactly the narrative muscles that passive watching never exercises.
From the publisher
An unobservant zookeeper is followed home by all the animals he thinks he has left behind in the…
About Peggy Rathmann
Peggy Rathmann won the 1996 Caldecott Medal for Officer Buckle and Gloria. Good Night, Gorilla, her almost wordless story, started as a homework assignment in a children's-book class and was named an ALA Notable Children's Book for 1994.
On her own site Rathmann describes a family videotape in which the dog quietly licked every poached egg on the buffet while her mother chatted nearby, and the family then complimented her mother on the delicious eggs. She says she suspects that tape 'had a big influence on my choice of subject matter.'
Also by this author: Officer Buckle and Gloria · 10 Minutes till Bedtime
More from “Just Like My Day”
This book is part of The Best Books for Toddlers: 30 Teacher Picks (Page Grabbers) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.