Following in the theme of using books to help my children understand a new concept, I was hoping this book would help my son realize that HE NEEDS TO GO TO SLEEP! We are on week 3 of a horrible sleep cycle where my son will not sleep unless he’s in our bed. When he gets put into his bed, at some point he sneaks back into our room and curls up next to me.

Enter Bear is Not Sleepy:

I received a copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a cute story. It’s time to hibernate, but Bear sees some birds flying south for the winter. He decides that he should go follow those birds rather than going to sleep. His friends are confused, but trek along with him because hey – that is what friends do.

So over many obstacles, and through many places they have never been before, they follow. Elephant and chicken are TIRED. Even on the cover of the book, they are sleeping while Bear travels on. That is some good friendship goals right there.

I won’t spoil the ending, but I think we all know where this is going.

My 2-year old son’s review

Me: Soooooo – what do you think?

Son: BEAR!

Me: Yes – but don’t you just want to go to sleep now? Even Bear needs to sleep.

Son: *yawns* (I do a happy dance in my head) *looks at me* NO SLEEP!

Mom Translation of Son’s Review

He did seem to enjoy this one. It held his attention, and he was able to point when I would ask him questions like “where is chicken!?”

The only thing keeping this from a 5 star review were one of the pictures. The illustrations are simple and easy, very different than a lot of the stories out now. The colors are not as vibrant (because hey – go to sleep already!) But my son kept pointing to the birds and shouting AIRPLANE! And I can’t fault him. He was right, as they do sort of look like airplanes. He didn’t believe me that they were the birds Bear and his friends were following.

Now I fear I have led my son to believe that we should follow airplanes in the sky as they fly all over the world for winter.