news-record.com

A Tar Heel good night

Reviewed by Kim Stacks Mills

I couldn’t begin to count how many times I’ve read “Goodnight Moon” to my 1-year-old. The routine is that I read the last line, “Goodnight noises everywhere,” and close the book. Then he flips the book back over in my hand, and we have to read it again. It’s becoming somewhat similar to the directions on the shampoo bottles – lather, rinse and repeat becomes read, flip and repeat.

So I was excited when I found out that Our World Books has released a series of “Good Night” books for several U.S. states (including Tennessee, Hawaii and Arizona), some big cities (including Boston, Atlanta and San Francisco), vacation spots (including Cape Cod, Charleston and Florida Keys) and some places that kids like to visit (zoo, beach and lake).

In “Good Night North Carolina” (Author: Adam Gamble, Illustrations: Anne Rosen, 2008, Our World of Books, www.goodnightourworld.com, $9.95 board book), Gamble hits many of the well-known spots in North Carolina. But don’t expect to learn the history of these places. This is a board book aimed toward little ones – I’d say 3 and younger.

It starts with “Good morning, wild ponies, prancing along the Outer Banks,” and ends with “Good night, city lights” referring to a city whose skyline looks like Winston-Salem. In between, we visit Kitty Hawk, Roanoke Island, Mount Mitchell, the N.C. Zoo and more.

The only problem I had with this book was picky. You can tell in a couple of spots that it was written by someone who isn’t from this area. For example, we don’t usually say North Carolina Zoological Park. It’s the zoo or the North Carolina zoo to locals.

Other than that, I like this book. It includes recognizable places in cartoonish but accurate illustrations that keep my son’s attention. Plus, I can show him the pictures in the book, and then show him the photos we’ve taken at many of the same spots.