Dawn Bentley

It's cute when the Pooh friends think someone is stealing puddles from the Hundred-Acre Wood. Christopher Robin showing up and lecturing about evaporation was a bit dry, but he wasn't a complete wet blanket. (Sorry, sorry, sorry!)

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and show more reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) show less

A summer picnic is interrupted by swarms of ants, mosquitoes and gnats so Pooh and his friends decide they must make a sign asking all bugs to leave the Hundred-Acre Wood. But Rabbit and Christopher Robin point out that some insects are useful for helping gardens grow and making honey and basically tell everyone to suck it up and take some bites and stings for the greater good.

No mention of cholera or even a few suggestions of how to have a peaceful picnic. More pro-bug propaganda out of the show more Disney corporation! (See also: Read with Pooh...All Year Through: June Bugs by Sarah Albee.)

(My Pooh Project: I love Winnie the Pooh, and so does my wife. Having a daughter gave us a chance to indoctrinate her into the cult by buying and reading her every Pooh book we came across. How many is that? I’m going to count them this year by reading and reviewing one every day and seeing which month I finally run out. Track my progress here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/23954351-rod-brown?ref=nav_mybooks&she... ) 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

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