Snooze-O-Rama: The Strange Ways That Animals Sleep

Here's a fresh, appealing book perfect for bedtime read-aloud—with a quiet presentation style and easy-to-read, fascinating science for youngsters to ponder in their dreams. It includes a dozen comparisons between the way humans deal with sleep time and a variety of animals with unique sleep habits. The human activity is described with a single sentence while the animal content is a short factual paragraph dealing with where, how and when it sleeps. Half of the animals are fairly commonly known species (sea otter, orangutan, turtle, bat) with the rest more unusual ones (frigate bird, sperm whale, oxpecker bird, walrus). They're cleverly chosen to match up well: human blanket/sea otter seaweed; human making a bed/orangutan building a treetop bed; human pillow/walrus air pouches.

The final page offers a brief explanation for why we need sleep and how much we need compared to how many hours a few different animals need (giant armadillo snoozes for 18 hours a day). The reader is left to answer one question, adding an interactive component: where is your favorite place to snooze?

Bold, brightly colored illustrations make the details inviting, but, of course, without a lot of animation evident. The animals are all relaxed and sleepy, wrapped up, snuggled together or drifting through sky or water, immobile. The focus on the single captivating fact about each one is enough to generate interest and stimulate curiosity to learn more....in waking hours. So this book also qualifies as a neat, science-investigation starter for young readers. Use the list of Suggested Reading to further this end.