Goodnight Gorilla Review

Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathman, 1994, by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Goodnight Gorilla is a fun board book that can be found for about $8. Story and illustration are both done by Peggy Rothman.

To summarize the book, a zookeeper is walking through his zoo saying goodnight to all the animals but what he doesn’t know is that the gorilla has taken his keys and is letting the animals out behind his back. The animals follow him home and settle down to go to sleep in his house until they all say goodnight, which blows their cover to the zookeepers wife. She then takes the animals back to the zoo and tucks them into their cages. However, the gorilla gets out again and follows her home. He ends up falling asleep at the zookeeper’s house.

The book is unique from other stories because there are several pages without words where you get to use your imagination to decide what is happening in the scene. It is great for interacting with your child during the story. You can ask them what they think is going on in the scene and with my son it is sometimes different than the previous time.

This is a great bedtime story.