The Yawns Are Coming!

Eliopoulos (Monster Mayhem) has created a sneakily effective bedtime book focused on an interest shared by kids everywhere: valiantly resisting sleep. Two best friends, a brown-skinned narrator sporting a blue bear onesie and his guest, white-skinned Noodles, who wears a green dinosaur onesie, make a long list of sleepover plans—none of which, naturally, involves snoozing. The pair play games, jump on the trampoline, and collect fireflies, but their plan goes awry when, in the middle of a card game, Noodles frantically announces: “THE YAWNS ARE COMING!” Sure enough, hundreds of little blue, smiling creatures—the Yawns—soon swarm the friends, who “ran. And we climbed. And we sneaked. And we hid” before being caught out. The two begin to yawn, mouths wide open despite their protestations, when “SPLAP!” a glassy-eyed Doze lands on Noodles’s head. Fluttering Snores arrive just behind it, and a calming, blanketlike Sleepie wraps the bear-suited boy up warm and safe. Amid fun-filled antics in Eliopoulos’s signature style, his use of soothing cool colors plays out against ample white space, cleverly centering exaggerated yawns and bleary eyes that are all too easy to mimic, making for a surprisingly soporofic read. Ages 4–8. [em](Apr.) [/em]