KS(Book)Report: Goodnight Wildcats | by Samantha Hawthorne

I’ve read more books in the last three years than I did in the previous 20 years combined. The secret? A three-year-old who likes to be read to before bed. Toddler books are short. With that in mind, I decided to mix things up with the third installment of the KS(book)Report series and review a children’s story instead of a 200+ page autobiography. So let’s dive into the first Kentucky Wildcats I found online: Goodnight, Wildcats by Samantha Hawthorne.

I admit, I didn’t do much research on this book before putting it in my Amazon shopping cart. At first glance, I thought I was buying the passionate and seriously published project of a bloodthirsty author. However, it turns out Goodnight, Wildcats is one of a series of “Goodnight (insert school mascot here)” children’s books by a mom with a second job. After reading it, I decided that the closest Hawthorne has ever come to Kentucky is visiting her local KFC.

Live and learn, I guess. They can’t all be as exciting as Rex Chapman’s memoirs, I find it difficult to live with myselfor the life story of Jack Givens, They call me goose.

Still, I read to my three-year-old son to instill some Kentucky fandom in him.

The words

Like too many children’s books, Goodnight Wildcats has no plot. It’s more of an overly simplistic poem that stretches over several pages. I was under the naive impression that this book was about sport, and although it contains vague references to athletics, it’s also about studying hard for exams and even contains the stunning line, “Goodnight, homework.”

The fact that this author has written a number of books in the same style for over 20 major universities, including Good night, volunteers, Goodnight, Longhornsand her best reviewed work, Goodnight, Notre DameI would even suspect that the exact same poem is used for each school, with only the few specific references to the campus being swapped out.

For example, Rupp Arena gets a goodnight wish, as does “Big Blue”, but apart from the words Kentucky And Wild cats Interspersed a few times, this poem could be written about every campus in America.

The illustrations

This book is supposed to be illustrated, but I’m pretty sure the author simply took photos and ran them through an oil painting filter in Photoshop. There are a few pictures of the campus mixed in with stock photos of generic photo models like the stereotypical doctor and orchestra musicians.

As far as sports are concerned, there is an “illustration” of AJ Rose running with a soccer ball, De’Aaron Fox to go up for a dunk, and my personal favorite, a snapshot from the basketball bench from 2018 celebrating, with Hamidou Diallo, Brad Calipariand a bend JohnnyDavid.

I would bet my kid’s every children’s book (probably his toys too) that Hawthorne had no idea who these people were when this book came out in 2020.

Overall impression

Of all the children’s books out there, this is certainly one of them. If you want a general story with pictures of basketball players flexing their muscles that doesn’t extend bedtime very much, then get the book on Amazon. However, if you ask ChatGPT, you’ll probably get a more Kentucky-specific bedtime story.

For me and my son, this book will probably be covered with Spiderman or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stickers before it finds any more readers. We’re always looking for leftover paper to decorate with.

I give this book credit for its existence, but that’s about it. Hawthorne clearly found a reproducible rhyme that works and is applicable to the masses. I respect the fuss. But the lack of any real Kentucky specificity isn’t going to spark any nostalgic feelings in any diehard Big Blue Nation fan.

On a scale of zero to eight banners, KS(book)Report gives Goodnight, Wildcats a one.