While You Were Napping by Jenny Offill Illustrated by Barry Blitt

from goodreads

2.5 stars

When I was little I had a very vivid imagination. (Sometimes I still do.) I always thought that when my mom sent me to the basement to get the ice cream everyone would turn into wolves, like the talking kind in fairy tales, and then they would turn back into humans as soon as I got back up. I'm not sure where the whole transmorph think came from but it was there. I'm not sure if I am sad that I "missed" them as wolves or relieved but it always made the trip down to the basement kind of exciting.

Now, I don't think people change when I'm not around, but, there are still things that I don't want to miss. I don't want to miss an episode of my favourite show, or I feel an urgency to get through some books so I can move onto some more. I imagine how much better life will be if I only could attain this much more knowledge. Usually everything remains almost the same.

Did you ever have a time in your life when you thought you were missing out on something?

Synopsis

A little boy did not want to go nap. Afterwards his sisters tries to calm his fears about things he might have missed.

My Thoughts

I went into this book thinking this was going to be a great story. But it didn't live up to the expectation. In fact I got a bit perturbed with it.

The sister goes through this big grand story about rocket ships and pirates and dirt throwing parties, not in a fun kind of way but almost in a rubbing it in sort of way. She said "nobody else had to take a nap that day". Way to make your brother feel even more of a baby because he had to. Geez. If I was the kid who had the nap I would have been so mad.

I also felt that the story was a bit disjointed. Things didn't lead well into each other. It just seemed one random thing happening then another.

So don't read this book, especially to a child who still naps. They may never want to nap again.