It's Time to Say Goodnight, by Harriet Ziefert (illustrated by Barroux)

It's Time to Say Good Night

Author: Harriet Ziefert
Illustrator: Barroux
Publisher: Blue Apple Books
Publication Date: September 10, 2013
Source: Edelweiss
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It's funny that the book is called "It's Time to Say Good Night" when most of it is about saying good morning. The little boy in the book spends his entire day saying good morning to everything.

Good morning to the sun, good morning to the hills, good morning to the cow, etc. In fact by the time he's finished saying good morning to every single thing and animal he sees, the day is done and it's time to say goodnight. Hopefully he get more accomplished the next day...

Magda's favourite part: I liked the cows and pigs and all the animals, but I didn't like that all he did was say good morning to everyone and then he had to go right back to bed. I wouldn't like that.

My favourite part: I like the folk-art type pictures and the fact that the child has to see everything before he's ready to settle into bed. But I agree with Magda. It's sort of weird that his whole day is spent saying good morning and then he has to go back to bed.

My Dog Thinks I'm a Genius, by Harriet Ziefert (illustrated by Barroux)

My Dog Thinks I'm a Genius

Author: Harriet Ziefert

Illustrator: Barroux

Publisher: Blue Apple Books

Publication Date: September 13, 2011

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Barroux's paintings are lush and lovely and are sure to capture the imaginations of readers young and old. In My Dog Thinks I'm a Genius, a young boy who loves to paint comes home to find his dog has been trying out some painting of his own. Barroux's illustrations for this book were inspired by the artwork of Paul Cezanne, and the book includes end notes about Cezanne's life and art. Fabulous! 

One note about the e-book edition, however. I'm not sure if this book is widely available as an e-book but the review copy I received was digital and there were problems with the page numbering. The pages were not lined up, so I was not able to simultaneously view pages that would be facing each other in the print edition, meaning that I saw half of one double page and half of the next double page, instead of being able to view facing pages together. This made the digital copy I received very hard to read to its intended full effect. I contacted the publisher (a few times) about it but never heard back, so I can only assume that any e-book edition in the future may have the same problems. Stick with print. 

Hit the jump for Magda's Take and more...

Lucy Rescued, by Harriet Ziefert (illustrated by Barroux)

Lucy Rescued

Author: Harriet Ziefert

Illustrator: Barroux

Publisher: Blue Apple Books

Publication Date: March 27, 2012

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Unfortunately, this is another book by Blue Apple Books that has the page numbers all messed up on the e-book edition (I've contacted the publisher multiple times and have heard no response) so it was impossible to read the book properly on my desktop the way you would a print edition (with pages 2-3 facing each other, pages 4-5 facing each other, etc.). As a result, the illustrations were all cut in half when we were trying to read this, so we had to guess what was happening some of the time. I found it a bit annoying, though my daughter Magda didn't seem to mind since she really loved the story. Something about the story of the little dog that couldn't sleep without a stuffed animal friend really resonated with her (she herself is miserable without Lambie). If you have to choose between a print edition and an e-book edition, though, I would steer clear of the e-book, since it's very likely mis-numbered the way my review copy was (again, I emailed the publisher a few times and didn't get an answer).
Hit the jump for Magda's take and more!