I’m Not Sleepy
Raahat Kaduji
Alison Green Books

When Flora, the littlest dormouse stirs from the long winter sleep, she’s raring to go with a head full of questions, unlike her friends; they just want to sleep. She though is ready to explore the big wide world to try and find answers to ‘Why are bees so busy?’, ‘What do caterpillars eat?’ and ‘How do birds build nests?’ for instance. Ignoring the call to nap with her companions, Flora storms out and immediately encounters a duck. She tells him of her urge to see the world; he offers her a lift to the pond and off they soar together. At the pond Flora is intrigued by the wiggly things, which she learns are tadpoles and the duck talks of recently hatched ducklings.

Flora spends the spring learning new things and writing postcards home about what she observes. She follows the development of new baby birds and caterpillars

and watches the bees through the seasons as well as seeing the autumnal pursuits of spiders, squirrels and migrating geese, and despite missing her friends, she doesn’t go home.

Snow falls and Flora starts feeling drowsy. Time for a little nap,she decides, snuggling down among the tree roots where she’s happy to find something fluffy to curl up on. ZZZZZ! Little does she know that her comfy bed is a fox’s tail. Along comes a beetle that immediately realises he needs to get help for Flora before the fox wakes.

Will Flora be rescued or will she become a tasty meal for the fox?

The story has a lovely final twist to it that is sure to make young children and adult readers aloud smile and Flora shares some of the entries from her nature diary, after the tale ends.

Raahat Kaduji neatly weaves facts about the natural world into her story and her illustrations are a delightful mix of the real and the whimsical.