10 Minutes Till Bedtime! by Peggy Rathmann

10 Minutes Till Bedtime! by Peggy Rathmann

Rating: 3.5 stars

You'd think this would be a bedtime book by the title, but the illustrations are much too exciting for that. 

The little boy in the picture is about to go to sleep; his father yells how many minutes to go from the next room, where he's reading the newspaper with his feet up.  While he counts down, there's a sudden and inexplicable hamster party.  Hamsters parade along the sidewalk into the little boy's house, to his bedroom, and even to his bathroom.  They turn his bathtime into a pool party!  He plays with them, reads to them, and marvels at them until his eyes are too droopy to stay open, and then they all leave.

There is so much going on in each picture that this book is one we rarely read together.  Instead, I hide it until we go on a long car trip or on an airplane.  In the picture, Lorelei studies each picture carefully on our way up to Baltimore yesterday.  She, and even Ben to a lesser extent, is just amazed at all the activity in the book.  The counting is a fun addition; 1 to 10 is no problem, so she traces them with her finger as something extra to do. 

And--look closely at the picture--do you see a screen in our car?  Nope.  That's right: Let's put our hands together for keeping TVs out of cars so that our kids actually (are you sitting down?) look out the window and talk with us while we travel and read a whole lot and then read a whole lot more.

A better travel book than a bedtime book!  A good one to pick up before your next journey.