and when he finally does fall asleep of course nothing bad happens to him, he just sleeps deeply and wakes refreshed.
#Scaredy squirrel how to#
Scaredy Squirrel is portrayed as something of a worry-wort, obsessively cataloguing his fears, making lists about how to deal with the situation, equipment he'll need to fight his fears etc. Nervous parents needn't worry that further fears will be added to their sleepless child's list - Scaredy Squirrles list of bad dream characters does include ghosts but also has things like unicorns, fairies and polka dot monsters in. Still, this is only a very short picture book, so I don't know how appealing it would be to an eight year old.
#Scaredy squirrel full#
I enjoyed the book more when I read it by myself! I found then that I appreciated the pictures much more, and the humour they add to the book, as well as enjoying the full page pictures that are more detailed, with lots of little things to look at. A lot of the fun comes from the illustrations which are clear and quirky. However, if you sat down to share this with an older child, or perhaps left them to read it to themselves, then the book would work much better.
I think having to explain some words or ideas in a story is definitely a good thing, but if the crux of the story is lost amongst the explanations then something is going wrong. The humour is on a higher level than I think most pre-schoolers can understand, or at least, with my questioning little one it seemed to involve far too much explanation in order for it to make sense to her. This means the book doesn't flow very well since it doesn't really have a linear storyline, and I instantly crossed it off my 'books to read aloud at playgroup' list as the kids would never follow it. A lot of the story is made up of lists - lists of things that Scaredy Squirrel is scared of, lists of what he does to stay awake, lists of the effects of sleeplessness. Can he find a solution to his problem?īecause of the cute, cartoon-like squirrel on the front of this book (and his glow in the dark teeth!) I tried, initially, to read it out loud with my four year old daughter.
But his sleeplessness is having a toll on his health. He has all sorts of tricks to keep himself awake so that he doesn't have to face his night-time fears. Scaredy Squirrel is scared to go to sleep at night.
Summary: This looks, deceptively, like a book for toddlers but is better suited to older (7-8 year olds), especially if they tend to worry a lot and get scared at bedtime.
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