Won't you Read to Me? - Sleepy Bears

This is my first week participating in In the Warm Hold of your Loving Mind's - Won't you Read to Me? weekly event. I have said before on my blog, that I am totally head over heals in love with children's book and I have PLENTY to choose from for this weekly activity and to read to my boys for many years to come.

The book I want to share with you is one of my favorites and top on the list for my boys favorites, they choose this one all the time.  Sleepy Bears written by Mem Fox was actually given to us by my best friend Erin who bought one for my boys because she said her own children loved it so much.  Sleepy Bears is illustrated by Kerry Argent and was written in 1999, this book is so beautifully illustrated that the pictures alone will draw you into the pages of this visually delicious children's book.

 

This adorable story is about a Mother Bear who realizes its time to bed down for winter, but her six cubs don't want to go to bed.  So, Mother Bear coaxes her cubs with the cozy invitation of curling up on the big feather bed under the quilt and each getting their own special rhyme.  

 

The author does a wonderful job creating the image of a chilly winter day and the overwhelming call that a cozy quilt creates on the crest of a cold night.  The whole bear family curls up together and mother bear watches to see who looks the most sleepy and Baxter bear yawns a BIG yawn.  (It is at this moment that my boys and I pretend BIG YAWNS).

Mother Bear softly tells Baxter of his pirate adventures on the open sea, chasing after other pirates, and finding his treasures, and Baxter gently falls asleep to the dreams his mother paints with the rhyme she created just for him.  After Baxter falls to sleep Mother Bear watches as each of her cubs become sleepier, and sleepier, and she creates a special rhyme designed for each of the remaining five cubs.

 

  

 

 

In the end all the Bear family is falls asleep even Mother Bear, and they all rest until spring.

Sleepy Bears is a fantastic story that you will love reading to your children night after night, and even if your little one chooses for you to read it every night of the same week, you will love it, I promise you.