{"id":1787,"date":"2025-01-29T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2025-01-29T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T11:00:00","slug":"book-review-leo-gets-his-nighttime-zzzs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=1787","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Leo Gets His Nighttime ZZZs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Leo Gets His Nighttime ZZZs<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

by Christine Corrigan Mendez and Jen Monika McCurdy<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong> Children\u2019s Picture Book<\/p>\n

ISBN: <\/strong>9798985809121<\/p>\n

Print Length:<\/strong> 36 pages<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>A valuable, community-driven story about achieving calmness and sleep for kids<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Leo might be in third grade, but he\u2019s suffering from something so many people\u2014old and young, you and me\u2014struggle with: a lack of sleep due to an overactive mind. There are so many things to do tomorrow. How can we possibly stop thinking and sleep?<\/p>\n

For Leo, many of his thoughts are related to school, sports, and his new favorite club: The Kids Can Club. Gathering in his backyard treehouse, he and a few of his friends eat snacks and plan missions to help those who need it in their community. Sometimes that means helping new kids at school feel welcome, and others they\u2019re helping an adult tend to her garden. This is the kind of club you wish your kid would get into.<\/p>\n

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When Leo starts falling asleep in class and on the goalpost on the soccer field, he knows it\u2019s time to enlist the help of his friends. It turns out\u2014Iris, another girl in the club, has struggled with sleep too. But her mom had an excellent strategy for helping her calm down and get some rest. Would he like to try it?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Soon, Leo and the gang gather at Iris\u2019s house to learn from their mom and, hopefully, make a change for the better.<\/p>\n

This is one of those rare kids\u2019 books that\u2019s infused with self-help tips while it tells an interesting story of a lovable kid. Iris\u2019s solution is what some grown-ups might call \u201cProgressive Muscle Relaxation,\u201d but to Iris, it\u2019s \u201cScrunch Up Five\u2014Unscrunch.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Iris\u2019s house, the kids lie down and focus on tightening muscles in their body for five seconds, breathing, and then releasing. It\u2019s a powerful strategy that is easy to replicate and see the benefits of. That much is clear the moment Leo falls asleep right there on Iris\u2019s floor.<\/p>\n

The Scrunch-Up exercise is outlined in detail and is given multiple pages of enactment. By mirroring the time and breathwork required to do it, the book teaches kids to slow down and give the practice its due time just while reading the book. Parents, guardians, and teachers will be encouraged to mimic the physical activities with their little ones, the ultimate teaching moment to practice what you preach. Parents are going to be glad to have a tool like this at their disposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One potential downfall to this, too, is that the action gets a little repetitive on the page. We follow through on multiple scrunch & unscrunch exercises, which means we read a lot of the same stuff. Since it\u2019s a reading experience that\u2019s best combined with the physical activity itself, this makes sense, but it does result in a few extra pages than is needed to tell the story.<\/p>\n

Sleep is such an incredibly important facet to our mental and physical health, and that goes double for kids. If your child is clearly having a hard time sleeping, this could be the answer you\u2019re looking for. And since it\u2019s got such a community-driven message, you\u2019ll be doubling up on its usage\u2014teaching sleep strategies and encouraging helping others.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff\u2019s book review of Leo Gets His Nighttime ZZZs <\/em>by Christine Corrigan Mendez and Jen Monika McCurdy! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.<\/p>\n

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The post Book Review: Leo Gets His Nighttime ZZZs<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leo Gets His Nighttime ZZZs by Christine Corrigan Mendez and Jen Monika McCurdy Genre: Children\u2019s Picture Book ISBN: 9798985809121 Print Length: 36 pages Amazon Bookshop Reviewed by Toni Woodruff A valuable, community-driven story about achieving calmness and sleep for kids Leo might be in third grade, but he\u2019s suffering from something so many people\u2014old and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}