15th March World Sleep Day

Occasionally when I have a class in the library and I am reading to them, a student will fall asleep. I feel guilty momentarily. Then I begin to wonder about bedtimes of the children I teach. They are often very tired on Mondays. When asked about bedtimes, some children say they don't have a set bedtime... I go when I'm tired. I think about the rigour of bedtime I imposed on my own children. By the time I got home from work and did everything I was hanging out for child-free time, even if it was usually spent on the next day's prep. 

Along with this lack of bedtime structure goes the fact that many of my students do not have a bedtime story ritual as part of bedtime. I looked up what the recommended amount of sleep for a 5 to 8 year old is and learned that it is about ten to twelve hours a night.

Sleep is essential for growth, immunity, learning and memory and is important for helping a child heal and recover. Healthy sleep means a good quantity and quality of sleep, with regular sleep routines.

However when looking for picture books about 'sleep', there are so many that are marketed as aids for sleep. They spruik mindfulness and repetition. See the  Ten Minutes to Bed series by Rhiannon Fielding;  Sleep Stories by Sara Cordingley; and the Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin phenomenon that started with The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep.

If we do decide to do a display of books in the library we have a lot to choose from and I would want it to provide pleasure and fun for readers, not 'teaching'.

There are books about sleep and its importance:

• Sleep is for Everyone  by Paul Showers

• Why Do I Have to Go to Sleep? by Kay Barnham

• Resting and Sleeping  by Katie Woolley

There are books about animals sleeping:

• Sleep  by Kate Prendergast

• Snooze-O-Rama by Maria Birmingham

• How Does an Octopus Sleep?  by Octavio Pintos

• Sleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue

• Where Do Creatures Sleep at Night? by Steven Simmons

• Time to Sleep  by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

• We All Sleep by Ezekiel Kwaymullina

There are books that combine sleep and sheep (and I'm not sure why): 

• Let Me Sleep, Sheep! by Meg McKinlay

• Where Will the Sleepy Sheep Sleep?  by David Metzenthen

• When Sheep Cannot Sleep by Satoshi Kitamura

• Sheep Won't Sleep by Judy Cox

• Too Many Sheep by Christina Booth

• Sleepy Sam by Michael Catchpool

• One More Sheep  by Mij Kelly

• The Eleventh Sheep  by Kyle Mewburn

• Sleep, Sheep!  by Kerry Lyn Sparrow

• The Sleep Sheep  by Anna McQuinn

• It's Time to Sleep, You Crazy Sheep! by Alison Ritchie

• Russell the Sheep by Rob Scotton

• I Can't Sleep  by Ximo Abadia 

• Time to Sleep Sheep the Sheep by Mo Willems

We have stories:

• Dozy Bear and the Secret of Sleep  by Katie Blackburn

• A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na

• Time for Bed by Mem Fox

• Let's Go to Sleep by Margaret Wild

• The Napping House  by Audrey and Don Wood

• Snuggle Up Sleepy Ones  by Claire Freedman

• The Animals Would Not Sleep by Sara Levine

• Can't You Sleep Little Bear? by Martin Waddell

• Mr Underbed  by Chris Riddell

• Sleepy Places  by Judy Hindley

• Go to Sleep, Jessie! by Libby Gleeson

• This Book Will Get You to Sleep by Jory John 

12th March More Sleep

Today, coincidently I covered and catalogued a wonderful book that fit so well with the sleeping fairytale discussion. I could have written about it last night, but I didn't know about it then. It is called Princess Sleepyhead and the Night- Night Bear by Peter Bently. It is written in verse which I don't usually like, but this book reads really well. It has all the sleep vocabulary, the royal castle setting and the bear tells the princess the stories of Sleeping Beauty and The Princess and the Pea. Just perfect and what a way to tie all the sleeping fairytales together!

10th March Sleeping Fairytales

Continuing on with the topic of beds and sleep... Today I had a very interesting conversation with a Year 1 student about fairy tales which feature 'sleep'. This started because she picked up Snoring Beauty  from the display we put together for the preschoolers yesterday. Realising it was connected to Sleeping Beauty she asked about borrowing a copy of the traditional tale. While we were in the 398.2s she said 'oh The Princess and the Pea  also has a sleeping princess',  and then we were off looking for others. Together we decided that Snow White  was 'asleep' when she was under the wicked stepmother's spell and that the princess in The Frog Prince was supposed to sleep with the frog on her pillow. We could probably add The Twelve Dancing Princesses  too because the princesses make sure that their suitors 'sleep' while they go dancing.

The student then suggested that we should add some fairytales to our display of bed and sleep books so we did! I love it when the children make display decisions and tell us library staff what would be a good idea.

9th March Napping Day

In America today it is Napping Day and in Britain for the whole month of March it is Bed Month. What fun celebrating these two occasions is with children's books! There are so many books to choose from. Today I had such fun with my preschool classes. We read The Napping House by Audrey Wood. We listed all the words she had used for 'sleep' ... doze, slumber, nap, snooze...we sequenced pictures to show who was on the bed and what order they hopped on. We talked about why the bed broke and the children had lots of good ideas. And then we used Penny Dale's Ten in the Bed  to sing and act out the song. (Of course there are other picture books of the song that you could use instead.)  The children were then keen to borrow another 'bed' book from our large display of bed and sleep books. I love it when something I plan works well!

28th April - 3rd May Stop Snoring Week

Whenever a book has snoring in it the children at school laugh and tell you stories about how their father snores. They love making the snoring noises as required for a story as well so I thought I would just explore how many books were in the library on the topic of snoring besides the children's favourite My Daddy Snores by Nancy H Rothstein.  There were more than I thought there would be. Here's some good ones.
• The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood.
• Dinosnore! by John Bendall-Brunello
• Bear Snores On  by Karma Wilson
• Stop Snoring Bernard  by Zachariah Ohora
• Snoring Beauty by Rachel Mortimer
• Snorey Time by Meg Pybus, which strictly speaking isn't about snoring but about not wanting to sleep and many a parent wants what this book has to offer.