Good-Night, Owl!

by Pat Hutchins

When I came across this book on the library shelf I immediately recognized the illustrations in the same style as Rosie's Walk. This book is just as fun and engaging. It features an owl trying to sleep in the daytime, but bees are buzzing nearby and keep him awake. Then a squirrel comes to sit on a branch and crack nuts, crows caw, a woodpecker taps on the trunk and so on. Each page adds a new animal to the tree making its particular noise: robin, blue jays, doves, cuckoo, sparrows and starlings. They make such a racket altogether when the tree is full the owl looks frazzled with wide open eyes. At last night falls and all the animals sleep. Then the owl wakes them up again with a loud screech! The last page always makes me laugh. My two-year-old doesn't quite get the humor of the owl "getting back at" the other animals, but she enjoys the lovely textured illustrations and the litany of animal noises and bird sounds. The book has a distinctive foreign flair (to my eyes) because I recognize that the squirrel as a red fox squirrel and the robin a diminutive european robin, different from the ones we have locally.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 32 pages, 1972

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