Why do you have to go to sleep, even if you’re not a bit tired? How do fish sleep, and do horses really sleep standing up?
Author: Anna Sofia Urrila, Henna Kaisa Wigren, Kirsi-Marja Zitting
Illustrator: Virpi Kaarina Talvitie
Finnish original: Silmät kiinni, Silmu
Publisher: S&S, 2019
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Fiction
Number of pages: 42 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English translation
Rights sold: Turkish, Hayalkurdu Kitap
Iris is cross. She’s in the middle of a game, and her mother, tired out by the baby, is angrily telling her to go to bed. Why are grown-ups allowed to stay up later? And who on earth is the Sandman?
Her dreams take Iris with them into the forest, to a farm, under the water and finally to the mountains. Along the way, the young reader finds out new facts about sleep. When Iris wakes up in the morning, everything looks bright again – even mother has cheered up.
Close your Eyes, Iris is an easy-to-read book about the fascinating and still largely unknown world of sleep. Many exciting aspects of sleep receive a child-level explanation which will also interest adult readers.
Do also jellyfish sleep, and how, as they don’t have brains or eyes? How can bears sleep all winter? How do sleep and sleeplessness affect the human body? And why is it sometimes really difficult to wake up?
About the authors:
Talvitie, Urrila, Wigren, Zitting