Good Night, Gorilla

This book was read at a mixed-age party and I'm sure that the adults laughed as much as the children! It has quickly become a classic, featuring the cleverly pictured sneaky antics of a renegade gorilla.

Our young hero steals the keys from a zookeeper and frees all the animals, who follow the keeper home at night. Hilarious "lights out" confusion ensues with a comical surprise ending!

34 pages, with only ten different words, the expressive, colorful pictures say it all. This playful book is appropriate for infants, toddlers, and the beginning reader as well. A delightful romp, and a surefire hit! One of those few treasured books that you'll keep for years to come.

The story's in the pictures: a mischievious gorilla borrows the zoo keeper's keys and as the zookeeper is completing his rounds, the gorilla lets the animals out. The gorilla, with all of the animals following him, ends up in the zookeeper's bedroom.

The pictures are terrific, with a lot going on in the background. There's a little mouse toting the gorilla's banana, each animal's cage has a toy, and, of course, the zookeeper's wife's surprise and familiarity with the animals following him home.

My daughter's definitely picked up some rather complex animal names (e.g., giraffe, armadillo) and picked up on the gorilla's shenanigans pretty quickly.

Very fun book.

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I used to read this to my preschoolers by request it was a permanent fixture in our library and I was not allowed to swap it out for new books! My kids would look for it if I took it away and I would have to bring it back. The Gorilla lets out all the animals in the zoo and follows the zoo keeper home! Mrs zoo keeper is not amused with her roomful of animals and Mr. zoo keeper has to return all the animals to their cages.

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If you look at the title "Good Night, Gorilla" and immediately think of the classic "Good Night, Moon," you are not alone. But whereas the latter is about a little rabbit who is putting off going to sleep by saying "Good Night" to everything in the room, this little treat written and illustrated by Peggy Rathmann is about a zookeeper who WANTS to go to sleep and is saying "Good Night" to all of the animals in the zoo. What the weary zookeeper does not know, is that the gorilla has grabbed his keys and there is a growing menagerie following him home to his wife.

"Good Night, Gorilla," is simply a charming little tale, where the drawings communicate much more than the dialogue. I want to think of the art as being a cross between watercolors and pastels, but then what do I know about art? What I love best is to find the mouse with the banana on the string in each picture, and I bet your children will love that too when they discover it on their own.

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This is by far my favorite and my 21 month old daughter's favorite. The illustrations are amazing in their detail. I've been reading it to my daughter since she was about 8 months old, and I'm still finding fun "treasures" in the pictures such as the people appearing in the window of the neighbor's house, the photo on the bedside table. There are so many others, but I don't want to give it away as the fun is in discovering. There is so much to this book with few words my daughter gets different things out of it at different stages of her development. As an infant she liked the rhythmic "Goodnight Gorilla...Goodnight...Elephant, etc." and the bright colors. As she started learning animals, she loved pointing out the zoo animals. Later she was enthralled by finding the banana on every page. Lately she has been interested inthe different items in each of their cages. She was so excited the evening she realized the doll in the armadillo's cage was "Baby Ernie!". You won't be disappointed.