Ten Twinkly Stars Illustrated by Russell Julian

High above the sleepy jungle,

Ten stars are shining bright,

As Lion yawns, "It's time for bed,"

And curls up for the night.

Summary From Caterpillar Books

Join the adorable animals as they snuggle and snooze beneath the twinkling stars in this enchanting counting book.

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Review by Liss Norton

This is a cute, bedtime novelty book designed to get children counting. The pages count down from 10 to 1, with colourful illustrations of animals preparing to go to bed. Every page (and the front cover) has cut-outs, allowing the appropriate number of yellow stars to pop through ready for counting. And when you've finished counting stars, there are plenty of animals to be counted too!

The book has an animal rhyme on each page and is perfect for bedtime sharing. The simple but bright illustrations will appeal to young children. Dominic, the three-year-old I shared it with, could hardly wait to turn over each page to see which animals were coming up next, although he was rather surprised to see owls and pointed out that they get up at night, not go to bed. The owl rhyme reflects this fact,

but on the last page, where all the animals are going off to sleep, the owls are snuggled in their nest. I was quite glad it wasn't bedtime then because Dominic wanted to talk at some length about why the owls weren't flying around!

If you're looking for a counting book, this is a good one, though it's only suitable for the over-threes according to a warning on the back cover. I'm assuming this is because the plastic stars could be a choking hazard, although they seem firmly fixed. Perhaps for younger children, it's a book to keep on a high shelf – just in case – to be brought down when there's an adult around to supervise.