Kids always comply with going to bed at bedtime and never ever fight their parents on it… Okay, that’s an egregious lie and everyone knows it. For that reason, your kids might need their very own “Sleepy the Goodnight Buddy.” This stuffed friend is the star of a new book by best-selling author Drew Daywalt from Disney Hyperion called… Sleepy the Goodnight Buddy.
Roderick has gotten clever about finding ways to prolong his bedtime and his parents are done. They buy him a new toy, “Sleepy the Goodnight Buddy,” designed to help sooth kids to sleep. But when the… bear?… moose?… toy comes to life, it gives Roderick a taste of his own medicine, asking him for a variety of things that will “help” him fall asleep.
Drew Daywalt is the author of the hilarious book The Day the Crayons Quit and its sequel, The Day the Crayons Came Back. It actually makes a cameo in this story when Sleepy asks Roderick for a bedtime story. His unique brand of humor is ever present here, with Sleepy and Roderick exchanging some Odd Couple banter. There is some narrative, but the majority of the story is told through speech bubbles like the majority of Mo Willems books. Daywalt also wrote another book for Disney, a children’s book from the Star Wars universe called BB-8 on the Run.
Illustrations are provided by Scott Campbell, who takes Daywalt’s talk of “freaky looking” eyes and makes them real. Sleepy’s eyes in particular are the main focal point of the pages, with large oval pupils that command your attention. His watercolor designs and color choices convey sleepy feelings, with soft edges and dim greens and blues becoming the most used colors.
Kids and parents will both exchange laughs as they read Sleepy the Goodnight Buddy together. It’s an honest reflection of the struggles of putting kids to bed, reversing the roles so that Roderick is desperate to send Sleepy to dreamland. You just found your new favorite bedtime story.