Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin. The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep. Penguin, 2 Oct 2015. 32pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780241255162
Ehrlin is a life coach with a background in psychology. This book is designed to help children fall asleep.
On the back cover there is this statement: “Join parents all over the world who have embraced a new nightly ritual. Reclaim bedtime and turn it into a calm and affectionate end to your child’s day.” This is a worthy sentiment and one which everyone who has ever advocated reading to children would endorse. However, many parents all over the world have also found that the warmth and affection, as well as the calm and closeness of reading a story at bedtime works with a book chosen by them or later by the child itself as it gets a little older, works in the way this book is designed to do. There are instructions to the reader at the front of the book and some of these might well be helpful to parents who are not used to reading to their children.
We are told that the book contains ‘specially constructed sentences and choices of words’ some of which are unusual and perhaps a little difficult to read but which are put there ‘for a psychological purpose’. Some of the words are in bold and are designed to be emphasised by the reader. The name of the rabbit who wants to fall asleep is Roger, a name designed to be read with two yawns. The creatures in the book have ‘sleep’ names such as Uncle Yawn, Heavy-eyed Owl and Sleepy Snail, again emphasising that this book is all about getting the child to sleep rather than enjoying the story as such. Where Roger, on his travels with his mother to visit the wizard Uncle Yawn to find a solution to his sleeping problem, meets the Owl, the description of their interaction is almost like a hypnotism session. Relax your feet, Roger (and the child being read to) are told, relax your legs, entire upper body and then ‘you are relaxing your head … you are letting your eyelids get really heavy’ and so on.
This is a heavily didactic book which, although it does have illustrations, is not really designed to share in the usual manner of a storybook. Indeed in the reader’s instructions, we are told that it is best if the child is lying down rather than looking at the illustrations, so that they will be more relaxed.
The book is also available as an ebook and an audiobook.
Reviewed by Margot Hillel
