Naptastrophe!

Naptime is so unnecessary. And unfair. Lucy, a small rabbit, “[finds] herself in her room. With the lights off. During the daytime.” Her cry of “I’m not tired!” goes unanswered, and she sticks to that story during a trip to the store with Daddy after she is finally liberated from the jail formed by the safety rails on her bed. But as all parents know, something has to give: Lucy has a meltdown in the checkout line (an event that actually resembles a nuclear blast), then conks out at the dinner table, her head plopping into her mac ’n’ cheese. Despite Lucy’s sleep-deprived implosion, Krosoczka (It’s Tough to Lose Your Balloon) may not win over many converts to the joys of napping: like Lucy, more readers probably see naptime as a cross between solitary confinement and FOMO (“Her toys probably missed her. But what if they didn’t?”). But his empathy for his stubborn heroine is never in doubt, and readers will sense that even when Lucy suffers the consequences, she gave it her all. Ages 3–7. Agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (May)