Good Night, Gorilla
Good Night, Gorilla
5.3/7
Bookroo
4.2/5
Goodreads

Good Night, Gorilla

Written and illustrated by Peggy Rathmann
$8.99
$8.58
0 - 2
Reading age
34
Page count
BR50L
Lexile measure
Jan 1, 1994
Publication date

Buy from other retailers

AmazonBookshop

What's This Book About

Publisher Summary

A must-have board book for all babies. Good night, Gorilla. Good night, Elephant. It’s bedtime at the zoo, and all the animals are going to sleep. Or are they? Who’s that short, furry guy with the key in his hand and the mischievous grin? Good night, Giraffe. Good night, Hyena. Sneak along behind the zookeeper’s back, and see who gets the last laugh in this riotous good-night romp.

What Kind of Book is Good Night, Gorilla

Topics

Categories

Genres

Locations

Reviews

Book Lists That Include This Book

The Creative Behind the Book

    Peggy Rathmann

    Caldecott-medalist Peggy Rathmann was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in the suburbs with two brothers and two sisters.”In the summer we lolled in plastic wading pools guzzling Kool-Aid. In the winter we sculpted giant snow animals. It was a good life.”Ms. Rathmann graduated from Mounds View High School in New Brighton, Minnesota, then attended colleges everywhere, changing her major repeatedly. She eventually earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of Minnesota.”I wanted to teach sign language to gorillas, but after taking a class in signing, I realized what I’d rather do was draw pictures of gorillas.”Ms. Rathmann studied commercial art at the American Academy in Chicago, fine art at the Atelier Lack in Minneapolis, and children’s-book writing and illustration at the Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles.”I spent the first three weeks of my writing class at Otis Parsons filching characters from my classmates’ stories. Finally, the teacher convinced me that even a beginning writer can create an original character if the character is driven by the writer’s most secret weirdness. Eureka! A little girl with a passion for plagiarism! I didn’t want anyone to know it was me, so I made the character look like my sister.”The resulting book, Ruby the Copycat, earned Ms. Rathmann the “Most Promising New Author” distinction in Publishers Weekly’s 1991 annual Cuffie Awards. In 1992 she illustrated Bootsie Barker Bites for Barbara Bottner, her teacher at Otis Parsons.A homework assignment produced an almost wordless story, Good Night, Gorilla, inspired by a childhood memory.”When I was little, the highlight of the summer was running barefoot through the grass, in the dark, screaming. We played kick-the-can, and three-times-around-the-house, and sometimes we just stood staring into other people’s picture windows, wondering what it would be like to go home to someone else’s house.”That story, however, was only nineteen pages long, and everyone agreed that the ending was a dud. Two years and ten endings later, Good Night, Gorilla was published and recognized as an ALA Notable Children’s Book for 1994.The recipient of the 1996 Caldecott Medal, Officer Buckle and Gloria, is the story of a school safety officer upstaged by his canine partner.”We have a videotape of my mother chatting in the dining room while, unnoticed by her or the cameraman, the dog is licking every poached egg on the buffet. The next scene shows the whole family at the breakfast table, complimenting my mother on the delicious poached eggs. The dog, of course, is pretending not to know what a poached egg is. The first time we watched that tape we were so shocked, we couldn’t stop laughing. I suspect that videotape had a big influence on my choice of subject matter.”Ms. Rathmann lives and works in San Francisco, in an apartment she shares with her husband, John Wick, and a very funny bunch of ants.copyright (c) 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

What Has Peggy Rathmann Said About This Book

Nothing yet! Let Peggy Rathmann know that you want to hear from them about their book.

More Books by Peggy Rathmann

    picture • 40 Pages
    Officer Buckle and Gloria
    5.6
    Peggy Rathmann
    picture • 32 Pages
    Ruby the Copycat
    Peggy Rathmann
    picture • 40 Pages
    The Day the Babies Crawled Away
    Peggy Rathmann
    board • 42 Pages
    10 Minutes Till Bedtime
    4.5
    Peggy Rathmann
    picture • 32 Pages
    Bootsie Barker Bites
    4.0
    Barbara Bottner, Peggy Rathmann
    View more

Other Books You Might Enjoy If You Liked This Book

    board • 30 Pages
    Little Blue Truck
    6.5
    Series
    Alice Schertle, Jill McElmurry
    board • 32 Pages
    Giraffes Can't Dance
    5.8
    Series
    Giles Andreae, Guy Parker-Rees
    board • 30 Pages
    Sleep, Baby, Sleep
    5.3
    Maryann Cusimano Love, Maria van Lieshout
    board • 32 Pages
    The Mitten
    5.1
    Jan Brett
    board • 28 Pages
    On the Night You Were Born
    5.0
    Nancy Tillman
    board • 28 Pages
    Goodnight Little One
    5.0
    Margaret Wise Brown
    board • 32 Pages
    Little Owl's Night
    Divya Srinivasan
    board • 32 Pages
    Are You Sleeping?
    Constanze V. Kitzing
    board • 30 Pages
    The Nice Book
    6.1
    David Ezra Stein
    board • 32 Pages
    Tacky the Penguin
    Helen Lester, Lynn Munsinger

Book Details

ISBN
9780399230035
Publication Date
January 1, 1994
Publisher
Penguin Young Readers Group
Page Count
34
Audience
Board
Reading Age
0 - 2 years
Lib. of Congress (LCCN)
92029020
WorldCat Number (OCLC)
26553002
Lexile® Level
BR50L
Est. Fountas & Pinnell Level
~B
Est. ATOS® Book Level
~1

Contribute to this page

Core Score - 100%

Perfect!

Depth Score - 25%

Just the barebones.

Improve this page

Are you the author or illustrator? Claim your book.

Top Contributors
01
@mami.learns.to.play
15
02
@thegoodfather
5
03
@iheartbooks
5

Bookroo

Book Clubs

Follow Bookroo