Can I Just Take a Nap?

PreS-K—Aiden McDoodle wants to take a nap, but cars, radios, pets, and even chirping birds are keeping him awake. He tries to sleep in his backyard, but his brother is doing cannonballs into the pool. He tries the library but it's full of busy, active children. He tries the park but there's a baseball game going on and an ice-cream truck is arriving. Every place in town is noisy. In a loud voice that can be heard around the world, he shouts, "I don't mean to be rude,/but I'm ready to snap!/Can you all please be quiet/so I can just take a nap?" Everything is silent. Aiden races home to bed and falls asleep. But the noisemakers are restless. They can't stay still long. And then the irony: "Aiden McDoodle started to snore." The pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations depict a cheerful, active neighborhood and one grumpy kid. Facial expressions are varied and funny, and the two-line rhyming stanzas read aloud well.—Ieva Bates, Ann Arbor District Library, MI