Goodnight Gorilla

The last time we went to the library, I let the girls choose their own board books from this bin. One of them chose Good Night Gorilla. We had it at one time, but I think I thought it was such a stupid book, I gave it away.

The girls love it. There aren't really many words in it which is why I don't like it and why the girls do, I think. For those of you that don't know it, it's about an absent minded zoo keeper that says good night to the zoo animals on his last round of the night. A sneaky gorilla takes his keys and the lets all the animals out. They then all follow the zookeeper to his house where they get in bed with him and his wife and go to sleep. That is, until the wife marches them all back to the zoo where the gorilla sneaks off again and go back to bed him them (and his mouse sidekick).

Miranda noticed something right away that I never had. In each cage, the animal has a small doll of himself. So the gorilla, has a small gorilla doll, the giraffe a small giraffe doll, etc, etc. Except the Lion and Hyena. The Lion doesn't have any doll and this is quite distressing to Miranda. And the Hyenna has what looks like an Ernie doll. Every time we "read" the book, she asks about this. "Where is the Lion's doll?" "No Little Lion?" Each time, I have to confirm, yes, no little lion.

It's actually quite odd and made me wonder if it was on purpose. There isn't much going on in the book so it would seem odd that the author/illustrator forgot to put the little lion in there. So it sort of seems to be intentional. Buy why? Lions don't like little dolls? Why not? And what's with Ernie? Some nod to a relative of the author? A secret send up mixed in with the animal shenanigans? Who the hell knows.

Having my mind filled with this worthless thoughts just makes me like the book even less.