This charming picture book transports  readers across Canada, inviting sleepy young ones to bid goodnight to each province and territory. Written and illustrated by Andrea Beck, author of the popular Elliot Moose series, Goodnight, Canada is a bedtime story, geography lesson, and puzzle book all in one.

A boy sits at his window at bedtime and wonders if the reader is getting ready for bed as well. He then says goodnight to his country, from one coast to the other.

The beauty of this book lies in its illustrations. Each province and territory is allotted a two-page spread in which a child goes to bed surrounded by landmarks and symbols unique to his or her home. In Newfoundland, a little girl wearing an oilskin jacket and sou’wester prepares for slumber in a fishing boat; a bear and moose sit in a nearby boat playing the accordion and fiddle. In Prince Edward Island, a boy sleeps under a quilt of patchwork potato farms. Close by, a fisherman rabbit holding a lobster, a pig pulling a red wagon filled with potatoes, and a bear dressed as Anne of Green Gables cross the Confederation Bridge from the far shore. In each whimsical spread the reader can spot the provincial or territorial flag. At the end of the book, the children from each location are pictured waving goodnight.

Beck manages to impart knowledge without allowing the book to become didactic. Instead, it is gentle and imaginative, and should be a hit among parents and young children, who will eagerly immerse themselves in this rich portrait of their native land.