ALA Booklist (Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2017)

There comes a time when sharing your bed with your little one becomes a domestic dispute. Laditan (The Honest Toddler, 2013) follows a little girl who wants to snuggle with Mom on the too-crowded "big bed," and decides what is best for the family is for her daddy to sleep on his very own cot: "Every night can feel like a camping trip with a metal-and-canvas cot! With this almost twin-size portable mountain bed, you'll feel like an honorary park ranger!" She presents the genius idea in true business-pitch fashion: out come the diagrams with a child's rendition of all the reasons why her dad should move out of the bed. One: he already has a mom and she shouldn't have to share hers! Two: he isn't afraid of the dark, like she is. Three: he gets to pick out any sheets he wants for his cot! What more could you want?! Every page is laugh-out-loud funny, as Laditan, with Knight's expressive illustrations, expertly presents the girl's matter-of-fact business approach. Beware: readers may get sold on the idea.

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

A brown-skinned, pig-tailed girl spends the length of this book telling her father why he should let her take his spot next to Mommy in the "big bed" ("Am I mistaken, or don't you already have a mommy?"). Knight's cartoony illustrations capture the imagined outcomes of the girl's hilarious hard sell--such as when ousted Daddy waves from a cot plunked somewhere in a forest.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Laditan brings the honesty and cheeky humor of her Honest Toddler books, blog, and tweets to her first picture book. Her prickly, precocious heroine is fiercely possessive of her mother (-No one can deny that Mommy is full of cozies and smells like fresh bread-), and she decides that the family bed has gotten far too small. There-s no way the girl is going to stay in her own bed-she-s afraid of the dark-so she offers her father an ultimatum disguised as a sales pitch, complete with visual aids and fake empathy (-Daddy, I see you. I hear you-). But wait, there-s more: Dad can sleep on a cot right next to the bed (-You-ll feel like an honorary park ranger and look like one, too!-). Knight-s cartoons alternatively flatter and tickle readers with the girl-s misplaced confidence, and his images reveal that Mommy and Daddy are a united, even bemused, front. Laditan-s story doesn-t so much end as abruptly stop, but many families will identify with her heroine-s I-mean-business attitude. Ages 4-6. Illustrator-s agent: Anne Moore Armstrong, Bright Group. (Feb.)