The very first book I bought my daughter, before she was even born, was 'Say Hello to the Baby Animals' and it was an instant hit as soon as she began to get interested in books, thanks to its simplicity, bright colours and touchy feely animals.

Fast forward two years and my daughter is now an eager little book worm, and capable of picking and choosing the sort of books she likes. So with simple picture books being a hot favourite we headed to our local bookshop to choose a new book, and she went straight for 'Say Goodnight to the Sleepy Animals', which is another book in the series and was obviously familiar to her due to her love of the sister book mentioned above.

The book is softcover, with a glossy front cover embossed with an endearing picture of a happy cat and her litter of playful kittens. The cats are slightly raised from the page and are tactile with a velvet feel. The rest of the pages are thick and fairly durable and the colours are vivid throughout.

Following the adventures of a cat who heads out in the dark, we see our main feline character say good night to a series of animals including a dog, a fox, some birds, an owl, a mouse and some rabbits. At the end the cat returns home to her litter of kittens.

The animals in the story are also tactile with the same velvety fabric on them, and each page contains one or two lines of narrative explaining the cats journey and the activities of the animals she encounters. For example there is text like "Busy little rabbits, it's time to stop! They settle in the straw with a hop, hop, hop!"

As you can see the language used is uplifiting and lively and the rythym is lovely for young children who are being read to. The illustrations are superb and the animals really jump off the pages and come to life.

Added to the main text, the animals are bid goodnight with the rabbit section reading "Goodnight rabbits. Hop, hop, hop." This is excellent as it reiterates the sounds associated with each animal and helps to aid the flow of language used throughout. At the very end we are yet again encouraged to say goodnight to all the animals at once, and again we are reminded of the sounds they make.

My daughter adores animals, repetition, bright colours and books that she can get involved in, and so this is the perfect book for her. She kisses the animals and seems to really warm to them, as well as being able to copy sections of the simple text, andof course say goodnight!

There are many of her books that I find boring to read, but this is not one of them. It really has no negatives and is a good addition to our collection. She also loves more grown-up books, so I was worried she would not get much value from this book, however she still loves it and it's a firm favourite, along with the original.

As well as this book other versions available include the already mentioned 'Say Hello to the Baby Animals' as well as 'Say Hello to the Animals' and 'Say Hello to the Snowy Animals.'

I think I paid around £4 for this book on special offer and it retails for around £5.99.