I Can’t Sleep
Gracia Iglesias and Ximo Abadía
Templar Publishing

How many people at the moment go to bed with their heads buzzing with thoughts – “I’m missing school,” … “I want to see my friends” and so on, and the consequence is that, like the little girl narrator of this story, that all important restorative sleep just won’t come.

She starts counting sheep to help her drop off and as she starts to count slowly 1 … a sheep emerges from beneath the bed and begins to devour the rug. Then a second sheep drops down the chimney (no prizes for guessing what colour it is).

The counting continues and soon there are fluffy sheep doing all kinds of interesting, though not sleep inducing things, both inside her house

and out.

It’s not until she reaches 9 and a very tiny lamb comes that sleepiness descends upon the little girl and she’s fast asleep before she can count to 10. Zzzzzzz

With Gracia Iglesias’ chucklesome counting text this is great fun for bedtime sharing with little ones, and Ximo Abadía’s illustrations are a delight. Created with graphite, wax and ink with digital colouring, they’re bold, quirky and playful: who can fail to smile at the sight of cuddle sheep number six cavorting across the bedcover

or the wisest old, guitar-playing sheep.