Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody

Gr 1-3  Imitation can indeed be sincere flattery, as Rex proves in his slightly eerie reworking of Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd's classic bedtime tale. The young bunny has been replaced by a little monster, but he still wears striped pajamas as he lies in his bed and says good night to his surroundings. "In the cold gray tomb/There was a gravestone/And a black lagoon/And a picture ofMartians taking over the moon." The parody is clever, matching original verse with rhymes that seem unforced and appropriate for the new setting: "Goodnight skull/And goodnight shoe/Goodnight creature/Goodnight goo/And goodnight to the old werewolf hollering 'Boo.'" Rex's color drawings create a monster child's bedroom filled with the same late-evening light of Hurd's illustrations. The book ends on the same peaceful note as the original. A clever offering just right for graduates of bedtimes with Goodnight Moon. - Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, ME

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

"A clever offering just right for graduates of bedtimes with Goodnight Moon." —School Library Journal

"[A] snort-inducing parody of one of children's literature's most sacred texts. . . . [W]hat fun it is." —Kirkus Reviews

"[A] lot of fun, and it may inspire kids to come up with their own retellings of other familiar classics." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books