The Napping House

The Napping House	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Written by Audrey Wood, Illustrated by Don Wood	2000
Fiction	20 pages
Reading Level age 2-5

Summary

This book is an accumulative book, where each page adds another aspect then repeats what happened before, similar to the 12 days of Christmas. There is a napping house where everyone is sleeping. There is a snoring granny on the cozy bed. On the granny there is a child and on the child there is a dog. The dog is under the cat which is under the mouse, on the cozy bed in the napping house where everyone is sleeping. Then a flea hops onto the mouse and wakes it. This sets off a chain reaction that wakes everyone up from the mouse to the cat, the dog, the child and the granny. There is such a ruckus that the bed breaks. The last page shows all the characters outside at the napping house where no one is sleeping. The colors in this book are cool tones, signifying the night and calm, cozy emotions. As the story progresses and the stack on the bed grows taller, the room slowly brightens as the night fades and the sun rises. The brightest page is where the bed breaks and everyone is in the air having been flung off the bed. The granny has her hands outstretched with the biggest smile that is similar to the happy smile on the child’s face as he sails through the air to land on the chair. Every character appears in each page and while one character moved to the bed, it shows which would be next by the movement, stretching, uncurling and heading towards the bed.

Reaction

I love this book. It is the perfect bedtime story, showing how there are others that are sleeping and not everyone gets to stay up. I love the colors that gradually become more vibrant and show the energetic life that the sun signifies. The attention to detail is awesome. It seems as if the dog could be petted and the blankets snuggled into. I think that the married writer and author did an amazing job with this picture book.

Potential problems

I don’t think that there are any problems with this book.

Recommendations

I would recommend this as a book to read to younger children, especially at bedtime. They can pretend to be all the different animals going to bed with the granny.