Donkey Hodie may spend her days playing with friends and helping out her neighbors, but even donkey puppets need some shuteye.
Donkey Hodie: Bedtime Stories was developed by PBS Kids to help get children ready for sleep. Each episode features Donkey or one of her friends as they read a bedtime story and calm their minds and bodies for sleep.
(Parents may want to note that Donkey has a rainbow-shaped pillow in her bed, though there’s nothing to indicate that this is anything more than a child’s toy.)
Each 5-6-minute episode in the series plays like a real bedtime story, showing storybook pages as Donkey reads them and complete with a lullaby. So if you’re looking for something to lull your tots to sleep, it’s not a bad option. However, since the blue light of screens can actually disrupt sleep patterns, I’d recommend using it earlier in the evening to help wind your kiddos down before they start their bedtime routines.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Donkey Hodie prepares for bed by reading a story about Hee-Haw Hannah, her favorite storybook character.
In the book Donkey reads, Hannah encounters three crying dinosaurs. Unable to speak the dinosaurs’ language, Hannah troubleshoots the problem, eventually realizing the dinos are tired and offering them a cozy blanket to sleep on.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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