Goodnight glow worms by Aura Parker

Puffin Books, 2020. ISBN: 9780143792918. 32pp.
(Age: 3+) Recommended. What happens when glow worms must go to sleep? These glow worms, the yellow, red, green, blue and pink glow worms just cannot turn off their glow and lie awake in their beds. In rhyming pairs of lines, Parker tells the story of a group of glow worms going to bed. They lie down, but simply cannot wind down. They try counting to three to no avail, so they call in mum for a goodnight kiss. She kisses their noses, cheeks and toes and off they go to sleep. But yellow glow worm cannot find his blankie so a search is on until it is found and he can quietly go to sleep with his sisters and brothers.
A bedtime story to quieten even the most irascible of would be sleepers, the gentle coaxing rhymes will help with last minute attempts to get them to sleep. The storyline is one that will intrigue but the tale of the timeline to bedtime is
universal, ending with mum's kisses and a final hold on to a blankie. The calming, quiet words envelop the listener, helping them in their trip to snuggling down into their bed for sleep.
Along the path to sleep, Parker includes colours and numbers, subtly introducing basic information at a young age, reinforcing learning these concepts, while the rhyming phrases impel the listener to predict the rhyming word.
Parker's use of mixed media, pencil, watercolour and digital composition will delight the young as they see the humour in the illustrations, carefully watching the little glow worms as they wind down to sleep. The detail will intrigue and the endpapers particularly will engage the readers, following the maps of the glow worm caves. Themes: Glow worms, Bedtime, Humour, Verse.
Fran Knight