I know this book word for word. Every sentence from "Where's the meal?" through to "....sleep"! And after dozens of bedtime story sessions I have got every voice worked out, even accents - after all a Shetland Pony must surely have a Scottish twang, and the kangaroo requires an Aussie input.
I know this book so well because my eldest daughter (about to turn 4) has loved it for the past year and now my 2 year old loves it too.
They love all the different animals and all the different voices. It's helped them to identify moods too as each animal is described as being hungry, shy, greedy, etc. At the end of the story there's a picture of all the animals together and both my girls love the game we play where I ask them to spot an animal and they point to it. They quickly learnt how to distinguish between a duck, a swan, and a goose - and they know about gazelles, moles, and hyenas too!
In a nutshell: It's not as artistic as some children's books, it's not as fascinating a tale as many other stories - but it's fun and it engages my children in a way that many other books don't. I get to do a range of funny voices to make my girls giggle - and that's what daddies do best.
