Goodnight Glow Worms

Goodnight Glow Worms by Aura Parker (Puffin) HB RRP $24.99 ISBN 9780143792918

Reviewed by Dianne Bates

From the author/illustrator of Meerkat Splash, this book also suits readers aged three plus years who perhaps have problems settling to sleep. Five glow worms live – as the fly pages show – in an underground cave house where you can see their various activities, from drumming to bathing to reading. They are known by their colours – pink, red, green, blue and yellow.

When it’s bedtime, an anonymous narrator says, ‘Goodnight Green and goodnight, Blue, Yellow, it’s your bedtime too!’ However, they and their siblings are ‘gleaming, beaming’ and can’t switch off and can’t wind down. Something is missing. Ah yes, it’s a kiss goodnight for each of them. This settles them but wait – yellow glow worm has a terrible problem: it’s blankie is lost. All through the home there’s a search until ‘Hooray! Silly duffer! Blankie’s found!’ So, smiling, it settles down (‘Cuddly, cosy, not a peep. One last Glow Worm off to sleep.’)

Told in joyful rhyming verse, ideal for reading aloud, the large-sized text is accompanied by whimsical watercolour and coloured pencil illustrations with lots of details sure to attract young readers. No doubt this will book will be a popular bedtime read as it prepares young children for sleep.