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If Animals Kissed Good Night
If Animals Kissed Good Night
If animals kissed
like we kiss good night,
Giraffe and his calf
would stretch their necks high
and kiss just beneath
the top of the sky. In a cozy bedtime chat with her mom, a young girl wonders how animal families might say good night. Would Wolf and his pup “kiss and then HOWL”? Would Bear and her cub “kiss and then GROWL”? But what about Sloth and her baby? They move soooo slooowwwww . . . they’re sure to be kissing from early evening until long after everyone else is fast asleep! With its whimsical art and playful rhymed verse, this affectionate picture book is bound to become a bedtime favorite.
like we kiss good night,
Giraffe and his calf
would stretch their necks high
and kiss just beneath
the top of the sky. In a cozy bedtime chat with her mom, a young girl wonders how animal families might say good night. Would Wolf and his pup “kiss and then HOWL”? Would Bear and her cub “kiss and then GROWL”? But what about Sloth and her baby? They move soooo slooowwwww . . . they’re sure to be kissing from early evening until long after everyone else is fast asleep! With its whimsical art and playful rhymed verse, this affectionate picture book is bound to become a bedtime favorite.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2008
24 people are currently reading
1094 people want to read
About the author
Ann Whitford Paul
49 books58 followersANN WHITFORD PAUL, author of 'TWAS THE LATE NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS has always been crazy for Christmas, but overwhelmed by it, too. Afterwards she is worn-out and dreams that someone like Mrs. Saint Nick could help her out with the resulting chaos and mess.
Ann graduated from the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University School of Social Work. She became inspired to write picture books after years of bedtime reading to her four children. She's published 19 different award-winning books. Now she gets story ideas from her three grandchildren. For ten years she taught picture book writing through UCLA Extension. She still enjoys teaching how to write picture books. When she isn't writing or teaching, she loves listening to her cat purr, watching spiders spin their webs and following snails' trails.
You can learn more about her, download writing tips and classroom activities, and contact her through her web-site: www.annwhitfordpaul.net
Ann graduated from the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University School of Social Work. She became inspired to write picture books after years of bedtime reading to her four children. She's published 19 different award-winning books. Now she gets story ideas from her three grandchildren. For ten years she taught picture book writing through UCLA Extension. She still enjoys teaching how to write picture books. When she isn't writing or teaching, she loves listening to her cat purr, watching spiders spin their webs and following snails' trails.
You can learn more about her, download writing tips and classroom activities, and contact her through her web-site: www.annwhitfordpaul.net
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 210 reviews
December 30, 2022
going out of my way to rate one of the baby books i’ve read to my baby rumi. this book freakin slaps. id give it 5.5 stars even. like comparatively most baby books appear mid when side by side with this. i’ve read my son probably 10 baby books so far and they just don’t hold the creativity and joy this one does. he’s not even old enough to know what i’m saying and he understands how good this book is. i imagine his first words will be — “now that i can talk, may we read if animals kissed goodnight again?” and i would tell him “say less, son.”
July 5, 2013
This is an adorable book, with wonderfully simple drawings, vivid colors, fun rhyming, and a great bedtime theme. The fact that they mixed up all the genders - mommies, daddies, daughters, sons - perfected the experience for me. There is an hilarious recurring theme with the sloths because they take so long for their kiss. My kids and I love to say "sooooo slooooow" as low and as long as we can while describing how the sloths kiss good night. Fun and sleep-inducing!!
July 14, 2023
My grandson is into elephants now, so he finally let me read this last night and wanted to take it to bed with him. 🥰❤️😍 If I could be an animal, guess I would be a sloth ... because they are so lazy, their kisses last from the beginning to the end of the book. 😉 But what about the turtles?! 🤔 Hmmmm... Think I need to go back and read it again...
February 9, 2020
Such a wonderful picture book. Would definitely worth reading for children and their parents.
May 24, 2017
I don’t know why, but I actually found this book really kind of disturbing.
December 18, 2021
I thought this would be cuter. The concept seemed really sweet and heartwarming, until I started reading. By pg. 2 things took a turn. It had a romantic undertone with some of the wording and pictures.
The sloths were kissing “soooo slooowwww.” Whoa. That’s weird. It’s a mom and baby, and it goes to romantic territory. They’ll spend the rest of the story slowly kissing.
She kept cutting back to the sloths still kissing. Ew.
The python mom kissed waggling around and twirling and twisting with her baby. They were wrapped up together like a romantic pose.
The wording is the type of writing I loathe. Kickity high-stepping prance. Scritch-scratchy kisses. Klick-klack their beaks, kissing klick-a-klack, klick-a-klack, kick-a-klack kleek. Kiss tip-a-tap—smooching their horns in a tip-a-tap rap. Jumpity-jump, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, bounce bumpity-bump. Slithery-ooze—a mud-happy heap. What is mud-happy?? Ugh.
It was also weird how it was worded that if animals kissed goodnight the sky would turn dull, the moon a chalk white. If animals kissed goodnight the sky would turn dark with the moon glowing white. If animals kissed good night the sky would turn black, the moon would shine bright. It should be when the sky turned dark, animals would kiss. Not if they kissed good night, it would get dark. Like they bring on the night. It’s like since they aren’t kissing, we’d never have night and it would always be daytime or something. It’s worded backwards.
Got this for a friend who’s having a baby. It seemed like such a good read. But now I’m trying to picture her reading out all these weird words and probably not wanting to say them. And about how it’s a little weird to have the animals kissing, a little too romantic.
The sloths were kissing “soooo slooowwww.” Whoa. That’s weird. It’s a mom and baby, and it goes to romantic territory. They’ll spend the rest of the story slowly kissing.
She kept cutting back to the sloths still kissing. Ew.
The python mom kissed waggling around and twirling and twisting with her baby. They were wrapped up together like a romantic pose.
The wording is the type of writing I loathe. Kickity high-stepping prance. Scritch-scratchy kisses. Klick-klack their beaks, kissing klick-a-klack, klick-a-klack, kick-a-klack kleek. Kiss tip-a-tap—smooching their horns in a tip-a-tap rap. Jumpity-jump, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, bounce bumpity-bump. Slithery-ooze—a mud-happy heap. What is mud-happy?? Ugh.
It was also weird how it was worded that if animals kissed goodnight the sky would turn dull, the moon a chalk white. If animals kissed goodnight the sky would turn dark with the moon glowing white. If animals kissed good night the sky would turn black, the moon would shine bright. It should be when the sky turned dark, animals would kiss. Not if they kissed good night, it would get dark. Like they bring on the night. It’s like since they aren’t kissing, we’d never have night and it would always be daytime or something. It’s worded backwards.
Got this for a friend who’s having a baby. It seemed like such a good read. But now I’m trying to picture her reading out all these weird words and probably not wanting to say them. And about how it’s a little weird to have the animals kissing, a little too romantic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2022
This is a one and done for our family. Tones of creepiness plague this book.
October 24, 2020
The Rhymes were well crafted and I could definitely see a song being made out of this.
February 26, 2025
Get ready to learn how animals would kiss if they kissed goodnight. My son’s favorite is the snakes!
February 27, 2012
Very cute illustrations, fun rhymes, and a variety of animals make this a winning bedtime read, one especially suited for Valentine's Day. I like the imagination behind the different settings, sounds, etc. the parent/baby animals would make with their goodnight kisses, and the ending illustration is especially adorable and ties in adorably with the author's note where she mentions she was inspired to write the book based on a little bedtime game she used to play with her own child.
September 21, 2012
One of my daughter's favorites!! It's so cute.
March 31, 2022
A minha opinião sobre "E se os animais dessem beijinhos de boa noite?" aqui: https://www.instagram.com/p/CaT9wbVM-DK/
Boas leituras :)
Boas leituras :)
December 6, 2014
Read for CBR 6
Today you lovely people get to benefit from my
1) need to provide the newest arrivals in my family with quality children’s literature,
2) hatred for gift registries, and
3) understanding of the panic that occurs when tiny babies do not want to go to sleep.
My go-to gift for any occasion is a book. Or many books. I figure you, my fellow Cannonballers, have a similar notion that there is, somewhere in the universe, a perfect book to give as a gift for almost every reason. Good days, bad days, promotions, losses, stubbed toes, missing you moments: Books are good for them all. Not cure-alls, mind you, but just to show you care, to let the person know you’re thinking of them, whatever the reason may be. And for actual gift giving days – birthdays, parties, Christmases and the like? Books should be your first response.
So for my cousin’s upcoming baby shower, I gave the registry a brief glimpse – too much pink, too little I could actually afford – and happened to see that they’d requested the Johnson & Johnson’s bath wash that’s specifically for bedtime (in that it contains “soothing lavender essence”), and I figured I could work with that. So I put together a little care package of the baby wash, an adorable puppy softie (that is seriously so soft I want to keep it, but won’t), and some appropriately soothing bedtime books to add to the new kiddo’s routine.
I started with a couple of classics, which I am not going to bother reviewing: if you don’t know about the awesome that is Goodnight Moon, I’m not sure why you’re bothering to read this review at all. Other five-star favorites I included were Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book; Ten, Night, Eight by Molly Bang; and Good Night Gorilla, by Peggy Rathman. (All of these books are in board book form unless I mentioned otherwise, because gnawing on books should just be a given until a kid turns two-ish.)
Next up is Time for Bed, written by Mem Fox & illustrated by Jane Dyer, which came out in 1993, and I consider a staple of bedtime books, but the lady at the bookstore hadn’t heard of it (gasp!), so I figure maybe I should extol on its virtues a bit here for those who’ve missed out. The short, repetitive & rhyming text (“It’s time for bed little goose(animal), little goose(animal); the stars are out and on the loose (rhyme)”) are sweet, cozy and charming. The pictures are water-colored & dreamy, and easily recognizable for older kids, and – while it doesn’t have any of the little comic surprises of a Good Night, Gorilla or The Going to Bed Book – the simple, soothing pattern is one that kids tend to memorize quickly and learn to help you ‘read’ early on.
The last three books I chose were new to me:
The first, If Animals Kissed Good Night, by Ann Whitford Paul, with entertaining illustrations by David Walker, drew me in because of the adorable elephants on the cover, and works as a good companion to Time for Bed, as it goes through different animals and their progeny (bear and a cub, seal and a calf, parrot and chick, etc.) and how they might say good night. It’s more Suessian & playful – with its “splashity-splishes” and “mud-happy heaps”, but no less soothing or snuggly.
Hush Little Polar Bear, by Jeff Mack, is about the adventures a sleeping stuffed polar bear – and his
little girl – might get into in their dreams. All the “bouncing through pastures” and “creeping through caves” are lovingly drawn and the fuzzy bear somehow manages to safely navigate his way back to imagining that he’s safe and sound with the little girl, all tucked into bed, book laid out on top of the sheets. It’s cute, and it’s a little bit different from the others in that it’s neither a book about a specific routine (10,9,8 or Goodnight Moon, i.e.) or a book about imagined routines (all the rest). Dreams and adventures definitely need to have some space in the bedtime book line-up. (It’s more along the lines of a Harold and the Purple Crayon.)
Last – and the only non-board book, because I don’t think there is one – is Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld. I bought it specifically because my cousin is an architect and works at construction sites a lot, so his little girl should know about them, eventually. The book goes through all different pieces of equipment and what they do – crane truck, cement mixer, dump truck, etc – and then has them slowly ending their day and going to sleep, with a gentle rhyme & and a brightly colored illustration – “He lowers his bed, locks his gate; Rests his wheels; it’s getting late. He dims his lights, then shuts his doors, and soon his engine slows to snores. Shh… goodnight, Dump Truck, goodnight.”
There you have it: Baby’s first bedtime books, which stop here only because I ran out of money. (Given a bit more funding I would also include: Roar of a Snore; The Napping House; Steam Train, Dream Train; Moon Dreams ; Llama, llama Red Pajama; The Dream Jar; I Love You, Stinky Face)
Today you lovely people get to benefit from my
1) need to provide the newest arrivals in my family with quality children’s literature,
2) hatred for gift registries, and
3) understanding of the panic that occurs when tiny babies do not want to go to sleep.
My go-to gift for any occasion is a book. Or many books. I figure you, my fellow Cannonballers, have a similar notion that there is, somewhere in the universe, a perfect book to give as a gift for almost every reason. Good days, bad days, promotions, losses, stubbed toes, missing you moments: Books are good for them all. Not cure-alls, mind you, but just to show you care, to let the person know you’re thinking of them, whatever the reason may be. And for actual gift giving days – birthdays, parties, Christmases and the like? Books should be your first response.
So for my cousin’s upcoming baby shower, I gave the registry a brief glimpse – too much pink, too little I could actually afford – and happened to see that they’d requested the Johnson & Johnson’s bath wash that’s specifically for bedtime (in that it contains “soothing lavender essence”), and I figured I could work with that. So I put together a little care package of the baby wash, an adorable puppy softie (that is seriously so soft I want to keep it, but won’t), and some appropriately soothing bedtime books to add to the new kiddo’s routine.
I started with a couple of classics, which I am not going to bother reviewing: if you don’t know about the awesome that is Goodnight Moon, I’m not sure why you’re bothering to read this review at all. Other five-star favorites I included were Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book; Ten, Night, Eight by Molly Bang; and Good Night Gorilla, by Peggy Rathman. (All of these books are in board book form unless I mentioned otherwise, because gnawing on books should just be a given until a kid turns two-ish.)
Next up is Time for Bed, written by Mem Fox & illustrated by Jane Dyer, which came out in 1993, and I consider a staple of bedtime books, but the lady at the bookstore hadn’t heard of it (gasp!), so I figure maybe I should extol on its virtues a bit here for those who’ve missed out. The short, repetitive & rhyming text (“It’s time for bed little goose(animal), little goose(animal); the stars are out and on the loose (rhyme)”) are sweet, cozy and charming. The pictures are water-colored & dreamy, and easily recognizable for older kids, and – while it doesn’t have any of the little comic surprises of a Good Night, Gorilla or The Going to Bed Book – the simple, soothing pattern is one that kids tend to memorize quickly and learn to help you ‘read’ early on.
The last three books I chose were new to me:
The first, If Animals Kissed Good Night, by Ann Whitford Paul, with entertaining illustrations by David Walker, drew me in because of the adorable elephants on the cover, and works as a good companion to Time for Bed, as it goes through different animals and their progeny (bear and a cub, seal and a calf, parrot and chick, etc.) and how they might say good night. It’s more Suessian & playful – with its “splashity-splishes” and “mud-happy heaps”, but no less soothing or snuggly.
Hush Little Polar Bear, by Jeff Mack, is about the adventures a sleeping stuffed polar bear – and his
little girl – might get into in their dreams. All the “bouncing through pastures” and “creeping through caves” are lovingly drawn and the fuzzy bear somehow manages to safely navigate his way back to imagining that he’s safe and sound with the little girl, all tucked into bed, book laid out on top of the sheets. It’s cute, and it’s a little bit different from the others in that it’s neither a book about a specific routine (10,9,8 or Goodnight Moon, i.e.) or a book about imagined routines (all the rest). Dreams and adventures definitely need to have some space in the bedtime book line-up. (It’s more along the lines of a Harold and the Purple Crayon.)
Last – and the only non-board book, because I don’t think there is one – is Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld. I bought it specifically because my cousin is an architect and works at construction sites a lot, so his little girl should know about them, eventually. The book goes through all different pieces of equipment and what they do – crane truck, cement mixer, dump truck, etc – and then has them slowly ending their day and going to sleep, with a gentle rhyme & and a brightly colored illustration – “He lowers his bed, locks his gate; Rests his wheels; it’s getting late. He dims his lights, then shuts his doors, and soon his engine slows to snores. Shh… goodnight, Dump Truck, goodnight.”
There you have it: Baby’s first bedtime books, which stop here only because I ran out of money. (Given a bit more funding I would also include: Roar of a Snore; The Napping House; Steam Train, Dream Train; Moon Dreams ; Llama, llama Red Pajama; The Dream Jar; I Love You, Stinky Face)
Read
January 1, 2021This is a good book to read when you haven’t hit your reading goal on the last day of the year. Approximately 5 min read. Highly recommend.
August 18, 2023
So cute, adorable and fun to read! Baby kicked while I read it so I take that as a good sign :)
February 1, 2024
I think this is a good book for children with the rhyming and different animals, but as an adult reading this to a child it was not great. I guess recommend if you can find this for cheap.
October 23, 2025
awwww, the animals were her stuffed toys, how sweet!
July 23, 2022
This is one of my favorite books. My Mama said I loved it so much that I ate it! I don't remember that, but I have a new copy and it's still a favorite bedtime story. I like that I'm learning about animals and I like how the sloth and her cub kiss sooo slooow! I also like the pictures
October 22, 2024
I love the illustrations, as I love David Walker from Bears on Chairs, but I'm not crazy about the words within. Not awful, but not fabulous either, just ok.
July 9, 2021
There are SOOOOO many better books about parent animals hugging/kissing their young at bedtime. I found the language in this one hard to read as the meter felt off in a lot of places. Some of the made-up words are thrown in just to get the rhyme right and don't add anything to the story. Didn't like this one.
November 25, 2016
I've read this approximately a thousand times at bedtime, and I still like it.
January 19, 2020
A lovely nighttime routine book. My favorite thing about this is the running joke about sloths, who make regular appearances throughout the entire as they slowly kiss.
January 17, 2021
Threw it in the trash. It’s for Pedos to groom kids.
October 13, 2022
My 8yo laughed at the sloths through this book 😅
February 10, 2026
So sweet and I love that we come back to the sloths over and over
August 19, 2023
Goodnight💜
September 21, 2023
Ann Whitford Paul’s story, If Animals Kissed Goodnight, explores the different ways animals kiss their mothers or fathers goodnight. Sloths would kiss slow, bears would kiss then growl, rhinos would kiss with a tip-tap of their horns, monkeys would swing in for kiss from branch to branch, and many more. Paul draws the reader in with exciting onamonapias like “klick-a-klack” and bright colors. The rhythm and rhymes are soothing for bedtime, putting any child right to sleep, or at least close to it. The story is encouraging to young readers that even animals need to say goodnight. Many young children kiss their parents goodnight, making the story a reinforcement of this bedtime routine through the silly idea that even animals do it. The nursery rhymes we have examined in past classes are similar to this story, as both stories employ rhyme and rhythm that help a child listen to the story better. For example, “Hey Diddle Diddle” ascribes human characteristics to animals through rhyme and rhythm, much like the animals in Paul’s story. They are doing such bizarre things that animals would normally never do, like in Paul’s story kissing goodnight, and in “Hey Diddle Diddle” the little dog laughs.
December 12, 2022
This is a non-fiction book, a New York Times Best Selling Book which is intended for ages Newborn- 3 years old. This book is about many different animals and each animals habits and the sounds each animal makes when moving and "kissing" there babies goodnight. It explores all kinds of animals from the ocean to the rainforest, it shows how each animal shows affection to each other. I rated this book 5 stars because it is the cutest book to show to any little one! The colors and the way the font is enlarged to highlight the sounds each animal makes, it really helps the story and to tell what is going on through each page. It pairs the sound with each animal to help the children start to say or learn to say those different animal noises. Young readers would love this story showing each other how animals make sounds this is a great book for babies as well to show them how we can start to make sounds to communicate. I would use this book when working with children to have them start pairing what sound each animal makes and being able to identify the animals by what they look or sound like. Even with words and/or actual sounds!
February 27, 2020
If Animals Kissed Good Night is about a child that wonders how different animals would kiss good night to their families. On each page, there are different animals and it explains how they would each kiss good night. It shows the different ways that they would share their unique love.
The overall theme of this book is love because it explains the way that animals would kiss each other good night. The message is very heart warming because all the animals differ in the way they say goodnight, but they all love each other.
I really enjoyed reading this children’s book. It made me happy inside, and it reminded me of when my mom or dad would tuck me into bed when I was younger.
I would for sure recommend this book to be in all the homes of young children. The illustrations are very well drawn drawn, and the author did a great job at explaining the ways that animals say good night.
The overall theme of this book is love because it explains the way that animals would kiss each other good night. The message is very heart warming because all the animals differ in the way they say goodnight, but they all love each other.
I really enjoyed reading this children’s book. It made me happy inside, and it reminded me of when my mom or dad would tuck me into bed when I was younger.
I would for sure recommend this book to be in all the homes of young children. The illustrations are very well drawn drawn, and the author did a great job at explaining the ways that animals say good night.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 210 reviews