Max's Bedtime (Max and Ruby)

This is a joyful series. Try to get the first edition (1979/84) as the illustrations are much better.

Max and Ruby appear on Noggin, and my grandsons love to watch them so I purchased a book for us to read together.

And I love Max and Ruby! This book was a great buy for me to give my son. When we read it to him he has to sleep with it. He can relate to Max since they are pretty much on the same wavelength.His older sisters laugh and love to watch the show with him, and they are teenagers!!!

Every child deserves to be read to from the moment his or her eyes can focus on a page. The problem is that most of the books that appeal to children under two, with simple, uncluttered pictures and only a few words per page ( and usually no story to speak of) are not exactly fun to read if you're any older than two. You read them because you feel obligated to, not because you want to.Rosemary Wells' Max books are different. They have great appeal to small children (I had to buy two sets of the books for my two children, because my son wore his out by hugging them so much. They were in shreds by the time his sister came along.) But adults can read them over and over again and never get tired of them. The stories and the illustrations are hilarious, and priceless. In this one, Max can't sleep without his red rubber elephant, so his older sister Ruby tries to give him substitutes, including a snake. The wide-eyed look on Max's face when he has a stuffed snake wrapped around him is, all by itself, worth the price of the book. In the end, Max finds his elephant, and tucks in Ruby, who has fallen asleep. The role reversal - the younger brother taking care of his older sister - is really sweet. But mostly the book is just clever and funny and wonderful. If you have a new baby, you are going to have to read a lot of truly boring books in the next couple of years. Do yourself a favor and buy at least a few of the Max books. You might even make it through the terrible twos with your sanity intact.

My toddler and I love the Max books. Max's Bedtime is one of her favorites - at 18 months old she was able to find the missing "red rubber elephant" that Max cannot sleep without! Great for little kids, fun for grown-ups too.