10 Minutes Till Bedtime

Bedtime routines have never been so hilarious

At One Hoppin' Place, the countdown to bedtime is about to begin when a family of hamsters arrives at the front door.All aboard the child's pet hamster, dressed as a tour guide, shouts, directing them to his bus. It's off to the kitchen for a snack, to the bathroom for toothbrushing, to the bedroom for a story. And just as the child begins to read, the tour guide looks out the window and shouts, More coming Busloads and carloads of vacationing hamsters stream through the front door, ready to enjoy the escapades as the countdown continues.

A sure-fire toddler pleaser from the creator of Good Night, Gorilla.

Author: Peggy Rathmann
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Published: 09/28/1998
Pages: 48
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.17lbs
Size: 11.30h x 9.66w x 0.51d
ISBN: 9780399231032
Audience: Ages 4-8


Award: Bookseller's Choice - Winner
Award: Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award - Nominee
Award: Red Clover Award - Winner


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/15/1998 pg. 58
School Library Journal 09/01/1998 pg. 179
Booklist 10/15/1998 pg. 428
Kirkus Review - Children 09/01/1998 pg. 1291
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/1998 pg. 16 - Superior,Well Above Average
ALA Notable Children's Books 01/01/1999 pg. 1302
SLJ's Best Books 12/01/1998 pg. 26
Publishers Weekly Best Books 01/01/1998 pg. 50
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/1999 pg. 16 - Superior,Well Above Average

About the Author
Caldecott-medalist Peggy Rathmann was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in the suburbs with two brothers and two sisters.

In the summer we lolled in plastic wading pools guzzling Kool-Aid. In the winter we sculpted giant snow animals. It was a good life.

Ms. Rathmann graduated from Mounds View High School in New Brighton, Minnesota, then attended colleges everywhere, changing her major repeatedly. She eventually earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of Minnesota.

I wanted to teach sign language to gorillas, but after taking a class in signing, I realized what I'd rather do was draw pictures of gorillas.

Ms. Rathmann studied commercial art at the American Academy in Chicago, fine art at the Atelier Lack in Minneapolis, and children's-book writing and illustration at the Otis Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles.

I spent the first three weeks of my writing class at Otis Parsons filching characters from my classmates' stories. Finally, the teacher convinced me that even a beginning writer can create an original character if the character is driven by the writer's most secret weirdness. Eureka! A little girl with a passion for plagiarism! I didn't want anyone to know it was me, so I made the character look like my sister.

The resulting book, Ruby the Copycat, earned Ms. Rathmann the Most Promising New Author distinction in Publishers Weekly's 1991 annual Cuffie Awards. In 1992 she illustrated Bootsie Barker Bites for Barbara Bottner, her teacher at Otis Parsons.

A homework assignment produced an almost wordless story, Good Night, Gorilla, inspired by a childhood memory.

When I was little, the highlight of the summer was running barefoot through the grass, in the dark, screaming. We played kick-the-can, and three-times-around-the-house, and sometimes we just stood staring into other people's picture windows, wondering what it would be like to go home to someone else's house.

That story, however, was only nineteen pages long, and everyone agreed that the ending was a dud. Two years and ten endings later, Good Night, Gorilla was published and recognized as an ALA Notable Children's Book for 1994.

The recipient of the 1996 Caldecott Medal, Officer Buckle and Gloria, is the story of a school safety officer upstaged by his canine partner.

We have a videotape of my mother chatting in the dining room while, unnoticed by her or the cameraman, the dog is licking every poached egg on the buffet. The next scene shows the whole family at the breakfast table, complimenting my mother on the delicious poached eggs. The dog, of course, is pretending not to know what a poached egg is. The first time we watched that tape we were so shocked, we couldn't stop laughing. I suspect that videotape had a big influence on my choice of subject matter.

Ms. Rathmann lives and works in San Francisco, in an apartment she shares with her husband, John Wick, and a very funny bunch of ants.

copyright (c) 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.