When I’m sleepy 🥱 (I’m ready to read)

Can we read? No. 88

Oct 19, 2022

Hiya! I’ve got nothing special to say today, so let’s jump right in 🛷

(Sledding is not jumping — unless you really work at it — but I’m including this emoji in honor of seeing the first snowflakes last Thursday. They did not materialize on the ground BUT THEY WERE THERE, BY GOD, and then they appeared again yesterday. Happy fall!)

Mama’s Work Shoes by Caron Levin, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton (2019)

Perry knows all of Mama’s shoes — “the swish-swush shoes for yawning, stretching, reading, drawing, and cooking” (slippers), “the zip-zip shoes for running, jumping, skipping, swinging, and fixing” (running shoes or, as my husband calls them, “go-fasters”), all different kinds of shoes for all different kinds of activities.

But even though Perry enjoys the “click-clack, click-clack, click-clack” of Mama’s new shoes, as they go through their new, unfamiliar routine — walking down the block to Nan’s house, where Mama hugs and kisses Perry and then walks out the door — Perry doesn’t like them at all.

As a kid who grew up with a mom who worked outside our home every day — and as a mother who now does the same — I love this book for the specific experience it depicts: that feeling of being dropped off in the care of someone else, saying goodbye, and feelings all kinds of ways about it. (Brantley-Newton’s charcoal pencil and digital illustrations do a wonderful job depicting all the shades of this experience and these complex feelings. I still remember many of the shoes — and outfits — my mother wore to work every day, because she was sophisticated and beautiful, yes, but also because these are the details you take in when you’re memorizing someone.)

What this book does best is its warm and loving conclusion, where Mama not only returns but reassures her daughter, “No matter what shoes are on my feet, I will always come back to my Perry-Berry.” This is a necessary one for any parent returning to the workforce, or any parent who never left: it says all the right things, in all the right ways, and can genuinely help you do the same.

The Little Library by Margaret McNamara, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (2021)

In this thoughtful story, Jake is intimidated by books, reading, and especially the library. When he and his classmates visit the new one in their school, everyone else runs to find specific sections and stories, but Jake is more interested in the bookshelves themselves: how the pieces fit together, the grooves in the wood.

When the new librarian offers the book Woodworking for Young Hands to Jake, he’s skeptical: “This has a lot of pictures, so it doesn’t count as reading,” he says. The librarian questions this: “Says who?”

Over the next few weeks, the book transforms Jake’s life in more way than one. When he realizes the school library is going to close for the summer, he’s inspired, and immediately uses all new woodworking knowledge to come up with a solution that will provide books — for free, to anyone walking by — all summer long. (I’ll give you a hint about his project: reread the title of the book.)

Karas’ endearing illustrations — rendered here in his signature gouache, matte medium, and pencil — coupled with McNamara’s thoughtful and empowering story about, essentially, following your bliss, is incredibly satisfying and would be particularly good to share with children who don’t like to read, or don’t see themselves as readers. Sometimes all it takes is one good librarian… and one good book.

Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin by Chieri Uegaki, illustrated by Qin Leng (2014)

In this beautiful story about the power of doing things your own way, believing in yourself, and having a growth mindset, Hana’s brothers laugh at her when she tells them she’s going to enter the talent show and play her violin (even though she is still very much a beginner).

Instead of letting this deter her, she thinks of her Ojichan, who had been part of a great symphony orchestra in Kyoto once upon a time — when she visited him in the past, he would play “a song about a crow cawing for her seven chicks” that Hana especially loved.

She lets this inspire her: she practices every day, even though she doesn’t play well, much less perfectly, and by the time the talent show arrives, she’s ready.

She takes the stage and though she doubts herself for a minute, she gathers her courage and plays all the sounds she’s been working on — not music, per se, but rather sounds from nature: the sound of her neighbor’s cat at night, the sound of rain on a paper umbrella.

Later, after her performance, her brothers ask her to play her violin again. She does. And she thinks of her grandfather far away, and decides she’ll keep practicing.

It’s hard to explain the soft beauty of this quiet tale — with Leng’s pleasing illustrations rendered in pencil and colored digitally — but I wouldn’t underestimate its appeal: my newly-6yo has been requesting to read this one again and again, and I think it’s because it speaks to something inside all of us, those questions we harbor, especially when we don’t know what we’re doing: can I do it? Am I good enough? Will I ever get better?

Hana teaches readers big and small: the answer is yes, and yes, and yes.

When I’m Sleepy by Jane R. Howard, illustrated by Lynne Cherry (1985)

When I’m sleepy
sometimes I wish I could curl up in a basket
or fall asleep in a downy nest.
When I’m sleepy, and I stretch and I yawn,
I wonder how it would be to sleep in a swamp
or a hollow log
or crawl into a cozy cave or sleep all winter.

Little ones will especially love following this small girl as she imagines all the different places and animals with which to snuggle up when she’s sleepy — from a basket of cats, to the arms of a raccoon, to hanging upside down with a bat, to a warm sandwich between two emperor penguins.

Cherry’s lovely colored pencil and pastel illustrations bring Howard’s gentle story to vivid life: the perfect bedtime read-aloud to encourage drifting off into the sweetest dreams.

Thank you so much for reading today.

As always, every Wednesday issue of this newsletter is free, so if you know someone who may like it, please pass it on! 🛷

(Another sled, because.)

Sarah