Very Little Sleeping Beauty

by Teresa Heapy, Sue Heap (Illustrator)

Overview

Very Little Sleeping Beauty is adorably re-cast as a very little precocious toddler in this modern retelling of the classic tale.  
     Once upon a bedtime, a certain little girl isn't very sleepy at all—tomorrow is her birthday, and she is reeling with excitement. From lullaby to stories to tickles to dancing, Daddy tries just about everything to get this little toddler to go to bed. Will Very Little Sleeping Beauty finally fall asleep to rest up for her big day?
     Look for all three books in this must-have read-aloud series: Very Little Red Riding Hood, Very Little Cinderella, and Very Little Sleeping Beauty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328684073
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	11/08/2016
Series:	The Very Little Series
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	26 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Teresa Heapy swapped the office desk for the kitchen table, going from publishing books for Oxford University Press to writing books. In her spare time, she does comedy improvisation and plays the ukulele. She lives in Oxford, England, with her husband and three children.
Sue Heap has written and illustrated many books for children, including the New York Times best-seller How to Be a Baby. Sue lives in Oxfordshire, England.  

Editorial Reviews

"A fun fractured fairy tale that will quickly become a read-aloud favorite." –School Library Journal —

From the Publisher

11/01/2016
PreS-Gr 1—The night before Very Little Sleeping Beauty's birthday party, her father says she needs to go to bed early, but Very Little Sleeping Beauty is not very tired. Instead, she asks him for a song ("A proper sing-song song!"), to play, and to get her bedtime necessities like her bear, her blanket, and her "drink in her special-est cup." When it takes Daddy a long time to come back, Very Little Sleeping Beauty decides to search high and low, until she finds Aunt Fairy with a special gift, a spinning wheel that Very Little Sleeping Beauty thinks is a wheel for pretend driving. After playing, accidentally breaking the wheel, and apologizing to Aunt Fairy, Very Little Sleeping Beauty sleeps through the entire next day until she wakes up just in time for her birthday pajama party. The watercolor and ink illustrations are vibrant and playful, highlighted by the plain white backgrounds that dominate the book. Only three pages have a different color background, subtly showing that Very Little Sleeping Beauty is scared or braving the dark. The text has a great read-aloud rhythm that encourages kids to predict what will happen next, with font size variations that help emphasize certain parts of the story. Fans of Heapy and Heap's previous titles will enjoy seeing cameo appearances of previous characters at the end of the book. VERDICT A fun fractured fairy tale that will quickly become a read-aloud favorite.—Rebecca Quinones, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County

School Library Journal

2016-08-17
Heapy and Heap bring readers the third Very Little tale.The tiny toddler protagonist is very excited for her birthday party tomorrow; so excited, in fact, that she can’t sleep at all. In ways that will be familiar to every parent (and that may teach readers some new tricks), she prolongs bedtime with all manner of requests, the final one being a drink in her “special-est” cup. This last stymies Daddy, who can’t find the cup. Rather than falling asleep during the long wait (as many a toddler might), she heads off to search the castle for him. Instead, she finds Aunty Fairy, an outlandishly attired woman with huge poofy pigtails and giant blue-tinted glasses, who has a gift for her. Unfortunately, Very Little Sleeping Beauty mistakes the spinning wheel for a steering wheel and, in her exuberance, breaks it. Aunt Fairy yells, the toddler cries, and Daddy puts things to right. By now, it’s almost dawn, and the girl finally goes to sleep, but she can’t be woken for her party, which is rescheduled as a pajama party that night. The watercolor-and-ink illustrations portray a white family (the party guests are diverse). The fairy-tale elements—the castle home, the spinning wheel gift—seem more than a little out of place. Very Little Red Riding Hood (2014) was a miss, Very Little Cinderella (2015) was a score. This spin on “Sleeping Beauty” makes it a pattern: miss. (Picture book/fairy tale. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews