Goodnight, Little Island

Why we love it

A bedtime book has one job — to slow a small, busy body down — and Goodnight, Little Island does it beautifully. As the sun sets, the island murmurs goodnight to each of its creatures in turn: the otters by the river, the hornbills in the rain trees, the cats curling up by a shuttered night market. The repeating, lulling "goodnight, goodnight" gives a toddler the predictable rhythm that signals sleep, and the soft, dusky illustrations dim page by page like a room at lights-out.

We love that it is a homegrown bedtime book. The creatures are ones a Singapore child might actually glimpse, which quietly roots the calm in their own world, and the gentle tour of the island gives the wind-down a comforting shape: everyone, everywhere, is getting ready to sleep, so you can too. There is no plot to keep a tired child hooked and awake — that is the point.

It is a padded board book, squashy and warm to hold, with thick pages a one-year-old can manage and rounded corners that forgive a sleepy grip. It makes a lovely new-baby gift and pairs with The Night the Stars Fell for a complete bedtime basket. Suitable from birth, and a quiet favourite of exhausted parents who appreciate a book that is firmly on their side.