Sweet Dreams — How Animals Sleep

by Kimiko Kajikawa

Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1999
Ages 3-7
ISBN 0-8050-5890-7

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AWARDS

Winner: Gold Award Winner 2000, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio
Winner: Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year
Nominee: Missouri Building Block Picture Book Award, 2001
Nominee:  Children's Book Award 2001, Florida Reading Association
A Children's Book-of-the-Month Club Selection

SYNOPSIS

In rhythmic words and affecting pictures, this inviting picture book introduces young children to a world of sleeping creatures. Some animals, like bats, sleep upside down, while others, like koalas and lions, snore up in the trees. Sharks, on the other hand, sleep with their eyes open wide so they won't miss a potential meal.

Animals large and small all have good reasons for sleeping the way they do, and Kimiko Kajikawa explores their particular and often humorous habits in this charming ode to bedtime.  For children 3 - 7 years.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I'm a huge animal lover, and my animals have a tendency to spend a lot of time with me.  One day, I was working on a manuscript and my dog, Olive, was lying at my feet doing what she did best — sleeping.  I said out loud to her, "Olive, I wonder how other animals sleep?"  The next day, I went to the library and started researching this book.

REVIEWS

Sweet Dreams: How Animals Sleep
Publisher's Weekly

"In unobtrusively rhyming captions and intimate photographs from a variety of sources, Kajikawa captures animals both wild and domestic asleep in their natural habitats. The creatures come from land and sea, and their bedtime practices are diverse. Lions, said to "sleep wherever they please," are shown draped languidly over the boughs of a tree; horses "stand up straight and tall"; sharks "rest with eyes open wide." The last spread includes photos of a napping baby and mom and of a young girl, while the text makes the anticipated overture to readers: "Everyone sleeps in a different way./How will you go to sleep today?" The appealing book design gives equal space to the photos and to the facing captions, which are set on photo-sized blank ground; both captions and photos are bordered in nursery-room yellow with muted blue motifs. Cleverly, this book goes beyond standard bedtime fare with its ample and intriguing endnotes, which offer a detailed paragraph on each animal's sleeping habits. Thoughtfully conceived, attractively executed."

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