4 out of 4 stars
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A little fellow suffering from hypersomnia likes doing everyday activities. However, he spends most of his time sleeping. One day, while going on a journey by train, he falls asleep and misses his stop. He wakes up at the conductor’s voice and worries about getting off the train and finding out where he is. But – more importantly – he worries about finding a good place... to fall asleep again. Roofless and lost, what will be of him?
Mister Sleepy, by Jane Alice, is a great story about sleeping. Children going to bed, either for the afternoon nap or at the end of the day, will surely enjoy listening to their parents reading this book to them. The main character, Mister Sleepy, represents sleepy children, and the various adventures that he goes through represent the various dreams children may have while sleeping.
My favorite element was the idea that, at the end of the greatest adventure portrayed in the book, Mister Sleepy will wake up for an extraordinary event. Likewise, children will fall asleep looking forward to a great day after waking up the next morning.
Each of the 24 pages of the book has short paragraphs and a large illustration picturing the event described. The illustrations, by Andy Yura, show a preference for calm colors, like blue and green, and often portray the funny side of being asleep all the time. As for the text, it involves simple rhetoric and stylistic devices like assonances and rhymes that help children engage with the narrative. However, school-aged children will find some difficulty reading the text because of the rather small font size. This was the element that I disliked the most, as it is clearly unfit for a children’s book to have such small letters. Besides a minor grammar mistake, one could say that the book was professionally edited.
All in all, Mister Sleepy, by Jane Alice, is a funny and relatable bedtime story about falling asleep. I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars because of what the main character and the storyline symbolically represent. I feel that the structural problem with the font size is not enough of a reason to lower the rating, especially considering that the story is mainly designed to be read by parents to their kids.
I think that this book is more appealing for children from 3 to 9 years of age. Moreover, it would be a great addition to a kid’s personal library.
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Mister Sleepy
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