Heather Cahoon (1)

Good Night, Sweet Butterflies is a mini book with colorful illustrations, a simple poem story, and several affixed plastic butterfly decals for fun. The text is rhyming sentences for each two-page spread, and it is focused on particular colors under the structuring element of a bedtime lullaby for the butterflies. The pretty fliers are looking for a place to sleep, and they pass yellow ducks and daisies, green frogs in reeds, a blue stream with herons and fish, and other locales that match a show more particular color, with the butterfly of the corresponding color settling down to sleep in that scene.

This is a cute little book with appeal for young readers; my girls really enjoy counting down the butterflies. The rhythm of the poem is good, not forced, and my only contention is that they authors repeat the color word unnecessarily - "on red roses where a red robin sings", where "on red roses where a robin sings" would sound so much cleaner. It happens for each color. This is a petty complaint, but it bothers me every time I read it. Also, I used to wonder why in the last spread, nine colored butterflies wake to play, but only five colors are featured in the book. I looked the book up on Amazon, and discovered that the original, larger-sized book, actually had more pages and incorporated all nine colored butterflies. When they made this smaller version, they cut out several of the colors. Was that really necessary? I so dislike abridged books. Other than these problems, this book is a sweet story with a lot of read aloud potential, and I would give the complete version a three star rating. show less

I love the concept. A different color butterfly on each page surrounded by nature emphasizing that color. As you turn the page, the butterflies disappear one by one.

However, it really annoys me that for pink the author chose "pink possums" though opossums are grey and for red "red robins" though generally robins are grey with orange chests; I've never seen a robin with red. Why not pink clouds or a pink flamingo? There are lots of red fruit like cherries and apples or red birds like show more cardinals and tanagers, even a red headed woodpecker has true red.

So, I like it, but I get annoyed every time I read those two pages that I can't get beyond 3 stars. My son (3yrs) likes it. show less

ISBN 0689856849 – Whether or not you enjoy this book will probably depend on what it is you expect from it. It is easy to become confused by the cover statement "From the creator of Ten Little Ladybugs" (ISBN 1581170912). The creator/author of that book is Melanie Gerth, and she is also the creator of Good Night, Sweet Butterflies - but she is not the author here. The text in this case is by Dawn Bentley, illustrations by Heather Cahoon. That information, intentionally or not, is hidden show more away on the back cover in small letters. Ladybugs fans might find themselves disappointed.

Nine glittery plastic butterflies head off to find a place to sleep. One by one, they choose a place, until there are none left. It is time to sleep until another day arrives.

While technically a Board Book, the pages here are much thinner than the usual board book binding. That and the small, not too hard to remove butterflies (a potential choking hazard) make the book unsuitable for children under 3. There are cut-outs on the cover for all nine butterflies and each succeeding page has one less cut-out, which is a nice way to learn to count down from 9. The places the butterflies choose to sleep are color-based (the blue butterfly chooses a blue stream, the red on red roses, etc), so colors are introduced as well. The negative comes in two parts, both in the writing. The text is in rhyme, but the rhyming pattern is clunky, with long lines and no evident cadence to it. In addition, some lines are tongue twisters ("with a pink piglet and three playful pink possums"), which only makes reading the rhyme more difficult. If your child is likely to spend a lot of time on the counting, you'll take so long between pages that the rhyme issues won't matter anyway, but it's an annoyance that what is essentially a poem doesn't flow the way you expect it to. Really a nice book and a super cute idea, Butterflies is just missing something in the text.

- AnnaLovesBooks show less

This is a beautiful book. I like how the words run along the bottom of each page so the picture is not interrupted. The colors are bright and bold. My daughter is only 5 months but I've started reading this to her as part of our bedtime routine.