What Does My Teddy Bear Do All Night?
Name of Book: What Does My Teddy Bear Do All Night?
Author: Bruno Hachler
Illustrator: Birte Muller
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Audience: Ages 3 and up
Summary: A story of companionship in which a young girl shares the details of her nightly routine for bed, which includes her relationship with her teddy bear. She projects her lack of desire to go to sleep onto her teddy bear. She wonders what activities her teddy bear engages in at night while she is sound asleep.
Literary elements at work in the story: A picture book told from the perspective of a young girl about her kindredness to her teddy bear. The setting is the bedtime routine of a little girl.
How does the perspective on gender/race/culture/economic/ability make a difference to the
story? The story makes cultural assumptions by placing the story in a home with multiple rooms. The family appears to be a white and/or European family of means, based upon the perceived size of the home and the child’s belongings including toys, bedroom, etc.
Scripture: Psalm 139:1-3, 18b
Theology: We believe in God’s providential care over creation. God does not abandon us, rather God is faithful in God’s love and care for all of creation. We cannot escape from the love and care of God.
Faith Talk Questions:
- Were there a lot of rooms in the house? Where does the girl go? Can God be there?
- Is God in every room of our homes?
- Does God watch over us at night while we sleep? Does God sleep during the daytime?
- Where can we go that God won’t be?
Review prepared by Katie Todd, MDiv/MACE, Entering Cohort Fall 2005
What Does My Teddy Bear Do All Night? by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.