Good Night, Alligator

What child wants to go to bed when playing is so much fun?

Parents of young children grapple with this conundrum every evening, trying to figure a way to ease their kids into much-needed sleep. A bedtime story with characters of the same mindset as the child listening can often help.

Good Night, Alligator, by American author Rebecca Van Slyke (Lana Lynn and the New Watchdog, Mom School, Dad School), is a lighthearted story that follows the path of a little girl who decides she is a happy version of her favourite animal, an alligator. She doesn’t want to stop playing, take a shower or brush her teeth. Her parents play along, addressing her alligator-demands as they nudge her through each step. They let her play in the bath and help her scrub those imagined pointy teeth - all 80 of them. They find a book she’s fascinated by (not surprisingly, the plot involves a wild animal) and let her lurk under the covers hunting prey instead of tucking her in tight.

The alligator/girl reluctantly accepts a kiss on the forehead and irresistibly slips into slumber-land.

Van Slyke’s prose is playful:

Alligators don‘t want the covers tucked in.

They need space to roll around and around and thrash their powerful tails.

Alligators could lurk just under the surface to hunt their prey.

Van Slyke’s text is accompanied by Alberta illustrator Mike Boldt’s bright digital images. Boldt is known for his outsized characters with their over-the-top expressions (Bad Dog, Find Fergus among others). His green alligator bursts with energy on every page, clinging to a door frame as the mother laughingly drags her into a bath, then exultingly splashing soap and toys in the tub. His colours are rich, and the pictures are full of the details of a little girl’s bedroom, appropriately including toothy toy alligators and posters of alligators.

Put together, Good Night, Alligator will entertain children who will likely have a lot of fun pretending to be giant reptiles and will delight their parents, too, as the family goes through its nightly bedtime ritual.