Mission: Bedtime

MISSION: BEDTIME is a delightful bedtime picture book. Kit's mother, father, and grandfather are all sleepy, but she is not! When the character on her favorite show, Agent Penguin, falls asleep, her grandfather has a plan. With some ingenuity, they enact a bedtime plot, each of the grownups transforming into agents with missions to wear her out, get her bathed, and settle her down to sleep. In the end, it will finally be mission: accomplished - until the next morning, when she wakes them up for mission: breakfast!

What I loved: This is a cute and playful picture book that turns bedtime struggles into fun games. Kit is very lively and energetic, which are qualities many young readers will readily relate to. Her bubbly character adds a lot of fun across the pages, and the idea of bedtime missions is a fun one that parents may want to replicate. While this may add some extra humor with the missions, the tasks will be familiar, including picking up, cleaning off, and then bedtime stories.

The images are lovely and really bring this bear family to life with a cartoonish quality that young readers will love. The story is easy to follow and portrays the ideas well. The back endpages also include craft instructions for one of the gadgets that are created within the story, adding to the fun. With the story leading to Kit settling down (at least until breakfast!), this is great for a pleasant, upbeat nighttime read.

What left me wanting more: As a small thing, the text could be pretty tough to read on some pages, with black font on top of darker colors. This is particularly challenging around bedtime or other lowlight settings.

Final verdict: MISSION: BEDTIME is a cute and clever picture book about the challenges of bedtime and ways to fill the routine with some extra special agent fun!