Nighty-Night! Good Night, Sleep Tight by Mem Fox

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, BONNIE AND BEN WERE BEING LOOKED AFTER BY THEIR FAVORITE BABY SITTER.

SKINNY DOUG!

Skinny Doug knows how to rock bedtime with some swinging nursery rhymes with his own special touch.

His "Good Night, Sleep Tight" features fleas instead of bed bugs, which for some reason tickles his preschooler audience mightily. They call for Skinny Doug to sing it again, but instead he launches into his mother's old standard, an up-tempo "Three Little Pigs Went to Market."

Bonnie and Ben call for more, so Skinny Doug delivers a bluesy round of "It's Raining, It's Pouring." The twins love it and shout for an encore.

Skinny Doug is looking a little bit worried. This gig is turning into an all-nighter nursery song super-special. But he knows just the tune to slow down the tempo and get the twins ready for a closer. Stretching out beside them, he swings into that nighttime classic, "Twinkle, Twinkle.... Little Star." Soon the music soothes the twins right off into that good night at last.

And before another chorus is all done, so is Skinny Doug, drowsing off to dreamland with his charges, in Australian author Mem Fox's latest, Good Night, Sleep Tight (Orchard, 2013). Artist Judy Horacek's vivid illustrations and Fox's timely sleepy-time tale will help take most any kids down that long road to bedtime. Publisher's Weekly says "The pictures’ visual directness and goofy playfulness capture the spirit of the timeless rhymes."