Bed, Bats, & Beyond

by Joan Holub, Mernie Gallagher-Cole (Illustrator)

When dawn comes and it's time for bats to go to bed, Fink can't sleep so the whole bat family pitches in to help by telling bedtime stories to lull him to sleep.

Genres: Fantasy, Childrens, 2nd Grade

64 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

NY Times bestselling children's book author:
GODDESS GIRLS series + HEROES IN TRAINING series (w Suzanne Williams); THIS LITTLE TRAILBLAZER a Girl Power Primer; ZERO THE HERO; I AM THE SHARK. Lucky to be doing what I love!

Reviews

[Amy the book-bat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super cute! A young bat named Fink can't get to sleep and his siblings try to help him by telling stories.

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun book to read at bedtime. The scary story isn't that scary, the adventure story isn't too adventurous and the love story isn't too romantic, but combined, the tales are fun. And the bedtime story is good to wrap up the book and help a child settle down for sleep. The black and white illustrations are cartoonish and humorous.

Overall, it's an entertaining group of stories and we really enjoyed reading this book together.

[The Library Lady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminiscent of James Marshall's "Three By the Sea" but less wonderfully eccentric. The artwork is merely humorous and the writing funny, but not to the point of wacky.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

My son and I both read and reviewed this wonderful book. Here's what we have to say:

SON SAYS:

What I liked and disliked:

I liked that the book had three stories. All the stories were funny and good. My favorite story was the adventure story with the pirates because the captain kept saying the wrong things. It was nuts. I also liked the Kissy, Kissy story too because it was funny. The Swamp Owl story wasn’t scary for me, but it was scary for the bat because he couldn’t go to sleep.

I liked the pictures. They were good but I wish they were in colour.

My bottom line:

This book was fun to read and I would recommend it to boys and girls 10 years old and minus.

MOM SAYS:

What I liked and disliked about it:

We are introduced to the bat family when Fink wakes up his brother Fang as the sun is coming up and he has difficulty falling asleep. Leave it to Fink’s siblings to come to the rescue with three of the wackiest bedtime stories. In the first story, Fang tells his brother a scary story about the Swamp Owl. The second story, narrated by Batrick (another brother), is a high seas tale of a slightly off-kilter pirate captain named Captain Batty, who along with his loyal crew, must battle Captain Owly for a buried treasure. In the third tale, Fink’s sister Batsy, shares with her brothers a “love-gone-bad” story of Cleobatra and Prince Tutwinkle. Luckily, Mom saves the day by coming up with the best bedtime story.

What I loved about this book was the quirkiness of the stories. For example, the way Captain Batty spoke by mixing up common pirate talk – saying “Come back, you scurvy navels” and being corrected by his crew “I think he means ‘scurvy knaves’ – was absolutely hilarious. My kids and I were literally laughing out loud. Without giving too much away, there are a couple of unexpected twists and turns in the stories as well as two surprise endings. I love being surprised and Holub really thinks outside of the box to provide readers with a most unique reading experience.

There are black and white illustrations on each page so the kids and I really enjoyed the visuals accompanying the text. I thought the style of illustration was appropriate for a Halloween picture book. This is a fairly long book for younger children who are not independent readers so the pictures were really helpful in breaking up the text.

My bottom line:

I absolutely adored this book. Holub’s writing style is unique and I really enjoyed reading this most unpredictable Halloween book. I would recommend it to kids aged 5+ and their families.

**Bed, Bats, & Beyond was provided to us by the author free-of-charge in exchange for our honest review.**

[Tierra Wooten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would use this book to teach about some of the animals in nature. We could do an activity where we actually make our own bats and hang them from the ceiling. We could even do something spooky where we make the eyes glow in the dark and when we turn the lights off all you see is a bunch of eyes. I would probably have to send some kids out, since its somewhat scary. This would be fun around Halloween.

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Bed, Bat's, and Beyond" is a story about four little bats that cannot sleep. They all tell different stories; adventurous, love story, and scary. But that doesn't help, so the mother tells a story and all the bats fall asleep. This story could be read to help students write their own stories.

[Jazzmyne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bed, Bats, & Beyond is a story about a bat named Fang who can't seem to fall asleep, so his three siblings tell him bedtime stories that make him even more awake. If I were to teach Pre-K, I would read this story to them at nap time.

[Nikki Ritchie]

Three young bats tell their brother stories to help him go to sleep. Each tells a different kind of story.

[Taryn Dean]

brother bat can't get to sleep so his siblings and mother tells bedtime stories until he goes to sleep... Students will tell about their bed time routine and what makes them go to sleep comfortably.

[Siddharth · Rating 2 out of 5]

It would be an amazing bed time story for kids because its about bats trying too help there brother sleep.