Review and Give Away: Sleepy Kittens and the Despicable Me Series

This give away is now closed.  Congratulations to the winner, Aliya, who has been notified by email.

Books so often play a vital role in children's bedtime routines.  In our house, a long day might end with just one book, or a normal bedtime may involve five favorites (picked by the Infant Bibliophile, of course).  Frequently, he insists on trying to read them himself, which can drag on quite a bit . . . especially when he craftily requests the Spanish-English dictionary as one of his five!  We don't always focus on books about bedtime, but I find it can be nice to have the last book we read be one about sleeping.  Some of our favorites include Goodnight, Moon and the Going to Bed Book.  (You can read all of our reviews of children's books about sleep here.)

This week, we were happy to add another board book about sleep to our collection.  First, the review. Then scroll down for a great give away!

Sleepy Kittens, by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio.  Sleepy Kittens is a tender little story about three kittens evading bedtime ("Mommy, we're not tired at all!"), and their very patient mother cat.  Eventually, the kittens succumb to their mother's lullaby.  The book's unique format includes three soft felt finger puppets attached to the top of the book.  This entertained our 2 1/2 year old bookworm, but I think it would be perfect for an Infant Bibliophile as well.

Excerpt:

"Three little kittens with milk all gone, rubbed their eyes and started to yawn." / 'We can't sleep.  We can't even try!'  then their mother sang a lullaby."

Bookworm's interest at 2 years, 7 months: When he first saw the book, he instantly went to the finger puppets.  He touched them and said:
Finger puppet #1: "Hello, how you today?"
Finger puppet #2: "I am nice."
Finger puppet #3: "I am nice too."

Then we convinced him to get ready for his nap, with the promise of reading this in bed.  He climbed in and we read it.  Afterward, we had this discussion:
Me: "Do you like this book or do you not like it?"
Bibliophile: "You DO like it!"
Me: "What did you like about it?"
Bibliophile: "Because it have cats and because they all go to sleep."

He then rolled over onto his stomach and closed his eyes to take his nap.  I swear!  Want your own copy now?  You can order it here.

Give Away!

On July 9, the movie Despicable Me will be released in theaters.  You can view a movie trailer here.

Summary: In a happy suburban neighborhood surrounded by white picket fences and flowering rose bushes sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, hidden deep beneath this home is a vast secret hideout. Surrounded by an army of mischievous little minions, we discover Gru (Steve Carell) planning the biggest heist in the history of the world. He is going to steal the moon (Yes, the moon!) in Universal’s new 3-D CGI feature, Despicable Me.

You can read about the companion Despicable Me book series on the official Despicable Me website.  And now you have a chance to win a set!

One (1) Winner will receive:

• Sleepy Kittens
• My Dad the Super Villain
• The World’s Greatest Villain
• Despicable Me: The Junior Novel
• Despicable Me T-shirt
• Despicable Me pencil 

Wow!

To enter:
1) Leave a comment.   If your email address isn't accessible via your profile, make sure you leave it in your comment.

2) Follow or subscribe to Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile and leave a comment letting me know.

3) Tweet about this give away with a link to this post and leave a comment letting me know.

Maximum of three entries per person.  Prize may ship to U.S. addresses only.  Deadline is midnight, EST, on July 14, 2010.   Good luck!

Disclosure: We were provided a copy of Sleepy Kittens in order to write this review.  If you click on any of the links above and purchase anything, we may get a small commission through our affiliate relationship with Amazon.com.