Name That Hymn Blog

The book I’m reviewing this month is Really Woolly Nighttime Lullabies. It’s a cute little hardcover board book that’s about 40 pages long. It’s sturdy and its pages are all thick cardboard-like stock, making it an impressively durable book. That, plus the fact that it’s about 6 inches by 8 inches make it an ideal book for a little ones. The book is ideal for toddlers or children 3-5.

The book is beautifully illustrated with full color pictures throughout. For those familiar with the Really Woolly series that’s been around for 15 years, you’ll notice pretty much the same pattern. There are lots of really cute drawings of the sheep character, along with friends like bunnies, baby ducks, fireflies, squirrels. In this book they’re doing fun things like hiking, blowing bubbles, looking at the stars, and camping out in the backyard. The drawings alone are beautiful and full of detail that will definitely capture a youngster’s attention and imagination. On the facing page of the illustrations is a title, a bible verse, and a poem, with a little one-line prayer under the illustration.

If there’s one slight gripe I had about the book it’s the poetry. The title is a little misleading–while it says it includes “lullabies”, what’s really included are three-stanza poems that rhyme. That’s actually counter to Webster’s Dictionary, which defines a lullaby as a “song used to help a child fall asleep”. In a way it’s showing the age of the Really Woolly series–they’ve already done Bedtime Prayers, Bible Stories, Bible Verses, Bible Promises, and Treasury, so it could be they’re just running out of “Bedtime” ideas.

There’s nothing wrong with the poems of course, and they do all have a calm, soothing quality about them. On the other hand some of them seem to lack substance almost to the point of being vapid. “Dream of kites and red balloons / butterflies and happy tunes / bunnies racing through the yard / sparkly sky so brightly starred”. Again, not horrible, but at times it seems like the authors were stretching to find a way to tie together words that rhymed as opposed to really writing a cohesive and substantive poem. Granted it is written for young children so I’m not expecting theological depth, but on the other hand I almost wish this could have been a book with real songs like “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Bids Us Shine” with the Woolly gang.

Still, as with all the other Really Woolly books this one is beautifully drawn and produced, and one I’d recommend to parents. That said, I’d probably buy one of the earlier version before picking this one up if you want a good introduction to the series. I’d rate this one 3.5 out of 5 stars.