When we first added Goodnight Moon to our bedtime ritual, I thought, “This book is sort of boring.” After a few months, I thought “This book is painfully boring.”
One day, my friend Sunny said, “I see new things in that book every time I look at it.”
Um, what?
So I started paying more attention and here are my suggestions to keep your interest level tolerable as you read Goodnight Moon. Maybe it works with other books, too. You’ll have to tell me what you’ve found.
- The bunny is in a different position in bed each time the bed is pictured. Check it out.
- The mouse is in a different location on each page.
- The clocks advance in time as the moon’s position changes.
- How many of the words in this book do you know in another language? Test yourself and brag to your baby. “Luna!” “Cama!” “Conejo!”. No fair if you or your parents are immigrants.
- The light and dark areas of the pages vary. The art is better than I first thought…
- Is this a living room or a bedroom? Or… a studio apartment? Where’s the kitchen? Who made that mush? Think about it.
Get more out of Goodnight Moon: who is eating that mush?
And in what other children’s book can you see cannibalistic bunnies?
I found this book pretty boring too when I used to read it, but it was our daughters’ favorite. Now, she is very into I Spy, which is worse because you can never find the darn things!
THANK you! My girls are WAY too old for this now, but when nieces and nephews come by, GNM is still top of the list (right up there with THE GIVING TREE). What a shame I found it UTTERLY BORING by the 10,000th read. But now .. follow the bunny! Follow the bunny!
I owe you one!
My son has recently become obsessed with this book.
We noticed that the clock changes (the book spans a little over an hour) and the moon rises. Does the mouse live in the little house?
Thanks for the fun & helpful site. Just discovered it today. I’ll be back.
I am with Amy – I was totally wigged out when I noticed the fisherbunny fishing…for bunnies!! What up with that???
Hilarious. You know I actually rummaged through my son’s book box to find this book just to find all the things you pointed out in the book. Hilarious! I’ll be sure to pass it on to my mommy friends. Looove your site by the way~
Read Margaret Wise Brown’s The Runaway Bunny for an explanation of the “cannibalistic” fisherman bunny.
OMG this was my FAVORITE book when i was little… lol
I thought it was idiotic at first (“Good night nobody”…say what?!), but then I read other baby books and realized GNM is quite poetic/artsy in comparison. I just noticed how the room gets darker and darker. Neato!
We recently took this out of our bedtime routine for more less boring books. When my son is a little older and able to notice the different things, I’ll work it back in. Thanks for this post.
my daughter is 20 months and has this book memorized. we have fun by leaving out the last word of each sentence, so that she can fill in the blanks. she loves to whisper “hush!” we even recite it in the car and everybody in the family joins in, even big brother.
When I was a 12 year old babysitter, I thought the book was boring and overrated. As a 30 year old mother, I find the book charming and sweet. Saying goodnight to all the things in a darkening room by a fireplace with a loving grandma keeping you company. How is that not a classic?
LOL! Those are exactly some of the reasons I have always loved this book! I always wondered why some people hated it, now I know, so thanks!
The bedroom/living room/studio thing and the mush is part of what takes this book from boring to a little freaky in my mind. Of course, my child is obsessed with “Good Morning Minnesota”, a tedious book which only got better when I heard my husband reading it with his own additions/commentary. Sounds like that approach would work here, too…I’ll try it!
From the Pizza Hut Bookit Program website:
There are only forty-four sounds in the English language. And all of those forty-four sounds – every ending, blending, and diphthong – can be found in Goodnight Moon, Make Way for Ducklings and Charlotte’s Web.
i thought maybe it was just me that thought this book was so boring so glad to know that i’m in good company. i’ll definitely be on the lookout for the subtleties.
I’m with Alexandra, I think it’s a sweet way to say good night to everything. But I’m a rookie mom to an 8 month old, so talk to me in a year or so when I’ve read it a couple hundred times.
I loved that book when I was little. I think it has perfect bedtime story qualities. It’s simple, non-narrative, and kinda boring which is perfect for the goal of gettin a kid calmed down and ready to sleep.
My 16mo son chooses this book every night before bed (we rotate other books as the second book so we can mix it up a little). I point out the objects to him as I read the book, and now he’s to the point where he can point them out. Other times, we take a break from the narrative to check out the pictures. He points, and I tell him what the object is. I don’t find it boring at all, because it’s a quiet, special moment of the day spent with my little guy. I work all day, so I treasure those moments. 🙂 Checking out the pictures also gets him relaxed and ready for bed.
Check out the body posture on those three bears. Looks like marriage therapy to me.
My husband pointed out last night that there is actually a copy of GNM on the nightstand next to the bunny’s’ bed… I had not caught that one!
Thanks for this. GNM is my son’s current bedtime book.
I love this idea and hope to find such comments on more books. Sometimes I just don’t know HOW to read to a child and WHAT to say. There aren’t lessons in that.
I love reading this book to my 6 mo old son. We read it every night. It is masterful. It flows beautifully, the rhyming is great, and the illustrations are great. I look forward to reading it because I get to spend quality time with my son and I love looking for something new in the book each time we read it. Now I have more to look for.