Title:10 Minutes till Bedtime
Author/Illustrator: Peggy Rathmann
Reviewer: Brent & co.

Tourist hamster raid
Words gone; images detailed
New find every night.

Rathmann's unstoppable hamsters are just cheeky enough to widen your eyes at their bold antics but polite enough to leave when asked. The lack of printed word will have you reaching for a different book on the nights you are too tired to put voice to the images. However, on the nights that you have a bit more energy, the density of the pictures and the stories within stories will ensure that you are as interested in scanning the pages as your little one.

There as many ways to read this book as there are hamsters in the chaotic bathtub scene. When our son was under a year, we turned the pages fairly quickly, naming only a few objects here and there but as he has grown (now almost two), we've spent more time on each page or we follow a different character or object throughout the book each night. Although repetition and familiarity have a primary place among the infants' and toddler's favourite reads, 10 Minutes Till Bedtime can provide a welcome change from the redundancy of reading the same board book lines night after night - that is, if you can summon a slight surge of narrating energy.