Oh, Are You Awake? by Bob Shea & Jarvis – The Strawberry Post
A book review of a fun children’s picture book about a lion who wants to be read a bedtime story but Penguin wants to sleep, so Lion decides to do something sneaky.
About Oh, Are You Awake?
Title: Oh, Are You Awake?
Author: Bob Shea
Illustrator: Jarvis
Publisher: Walker Books
Genre: Children’s picture book
Book format reviewed: Paperback
Sweet Strawberries: 
Description: There was once a very sleepy penguin who was best friends with a not-so-sleepy lion…
*Free copy provided by publisher for review…
My review and thoughts on Oh, Are You Awake?
This is such a fun and funny picture book which will make you laugh and smile. Penguin is sleepy but Lion wants Penguin to read him a story. Penguin says it’s not the time for stories and starts dreaming of candies and sweets. But a noise disturbs Penguin’s dream, and it turns out Lion is playing the drums, “Oh, are you awake?” Lion asks. The paperback is filled with thick matt pages of some fun illustrations and text.
The story in this book is such a fun one with Penguin wanting to fall asleep all the time and having lovely dreams which soon go wrong and turn into nightmares when Penguin is then woken up by Lion being noisy or disturbing Penguin in some other way. Lion wants Penguin to tell him a story, but each time Penguin refuses and drifts off to sleep they are disturbed by Lion’s noisy behaviour. The story is very funny, with Lion acting all innocent about the noise he’s making, knowing full well it will wake up Penguin, and in the end there’s a fun twist with what happens to both characters with that last page wrapping things up so well.
The pictures are so good! I love Jarvis’s style of illustration and the way Penguin and Lion look, especially when Lion pulls some funny expressions. There are pages that show Penguin’s dreams and what is happening in them without words, and I like how these dreams look and turn into disasters when Lion seems to wake Penguin up. The text for Penguin and Lion is in different colours which helps you see who is speaking, and the whole story of Penguin trying to fall asleep while Lion is definitely not sleepy is a brilliant and fun one that many children will enjoy (and a situation I’m sure many parents can relate to).
The ending of this book is so good and I’m sure that lots of kids (and adults) will enjoy this twist on a typical bedtime book. It’s a brilliant story that will make you laugh, with illustrations that will make you smile so much too, and a book I’m sure many will pick up again and again.
Other children’s bedtime picture books
-Read review – Goodnight Elmer Puppet Book by David McKee
-Read review – My First Elmer Bedtime by David McKee
-Read review – Elmer and the Bedtime Story by David McKee
-Read review – Bedtime Daddy! by Sharon Giltrow & Katrin Dreiling
-Read review – Dinosaurs Don’t Have Bedtimes! by Timothy Knapman & Nikki Dyson
-Read review – Goodnight Everyone by Chris Haughton
What do you think of this book? Do you struggle to go to sleep at night? What other bedtime stories do you recommend? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
