In former Saturday Night Live cast member Moynihan’s picture-book debut, a toad narrator fighting sleep introduces readers to all the exciting sheep they know.
People count sheep in order to fall asleep, ergo sheep are boring. But the toad, who sports a green striped shirt and black shorts on stick-thin limbs and has an iron bedstead in the sheep’s field, wants to prove otherwise. One by one, the toad introduces sheep like Alice, who has both a jet pack and a helmet (Alice is both “smart AND cool”), Julie, who loves dancing and coffee, and Mike H., who “likes to eat pickles while sitting in a big wet boot.” Gary, who doesn’t know what pasta is, is just plain weird, but weird isn’t boring. The parade of sheep gradually gets less and less cool, from Dan, who requires extra exclamation marks to seem hipper, to Katie, who has never actually pranced on the moon, and finally to Steve. Steve is a sheep in a tan vest and headphones using a metal detector in the field. And Steve IS boring, but “that doesn’t mean…that ALL…sheep…are…NOT…ALL…SHEEP…ARE…Zzzzzzz.” Rowan-Zoch’s digital illustrations keep the details simple to focus on the droll sheep, plain white or the bright green of the pasture serving as backgrounds. Still, readers may have different ideas as to which sheep are boring…and may fall asleep long before they reach Steve. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hopefully readers’ own flocks are either livelier or more conducive to sleep; this toad’s will do in the meantime.
(Picture book. 3-6)