Poppy & Sam and the Search for Sleep

Poppy & Sam and the Search for Sleep, the third Poppy & Sam book by Cathon and translated by Susan Ouriou, finds Poppy, who lives in a pumpkin in a large garden, unable to hibernate. She wakes up her friend Sam, a panda bear who also lives in the garden, to help her. Together, they visit Nellie the bee who welcomes them into her hive, but her advice to count honeypots doesn’t help. Other advice, such as warm fly milk from their friend Clement the frog and Mimi the ant’s suggestion to read a book, doesn’t help Poppy fall asleep. Discouraged, the two friends wander in the garden and meet Simone, the mouse. She explains that mice don’t hibernate and Poppy and Sam can stay with her family in the ant hill during the winter. And then something surprising happens. Poppy falls asleep.

Young readers, those who still enjoy a read-aloud and others who are newly independent readers, will enjoy this new book experience – an easy-to-read graphic novel. The warm autumn colours of the garden setting with trees, acorns and falling leaves provide familiar outdoor details. The characters’ homes, the bee hive, the underground homes of the frog and mouse and the ant hill, include some realistic detail with cute human additions which add interest to the story. The expressive cartoon style drawings add personality to the characters. The graphic novel format with large half page, full-page and double-page spread panels enables the child to easily track through the narrative. The size of the panels helps the younger reader focus on both the picture cues and the text bubbles.

Poppy & Sam and the Search for Sleep provides its younger audience with a delightful, appealing story that highlights how some animals adapt to the winter through hibernation. Some children might question why Poppy wants to hibernate since she is a human not an animal. Interesting dialogue and further investigation about hibernation might follow. The friendship between Poppy and Sam and the suggestions of their garden neighbours to help Poppy fall asleep illustrate the problem-solving process in a story. The humour in both the text and the illustrations makes this book engaging.

Emerging readers will enjoy this comic-book style storybook. A shared reading experience with an adult or older reader will assist the child if this is the child’s first experience with a graphic novel. This will demonstrate how to explore the narrative through the relationship between pictures and text bubbles. Poppy & Sam and the Search for Sleep will also have appeal for reluctant readers.