Too Much of a Good Thing! Wakem the Rooster, Up All Night by David Fitzsimmons

WAKEM THE ROOSTER HAD AN INCREDIBLE VOICE.

WITH SUCH AN INCREDIBLE VOICE, WAKEM COULD--AND DID--SING FOR HOURS.

All his farm friends value Wakem's work. He wakes them in the morning so that they can start the day bright and early. And they are lavish in their praise.

Unfortunately, fame goes to Wakem's head.

His powerful voice is heard ringing throughout the day. And then he begins to crow all night!

All night?

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!

A few bracing morning Doodle-Doos are one thing! Doodle-doing all night long is another! The barnyard animals grow more and more groggy from loss of sleep. Even Wakem realizes it's too much of a good thing. He can't sleep either, and when he's awake, he's just gotta crow!

Wakem asks his friends for advice on how to cure his insomnia. Dog suggests exercise and a healthy diet, but that just seems to give his a lustier voice. Cat advocates yoga and meditation. Owl proposes counting sheep. But Wakem can't find the sheep. They're not in the barn and not in the farmhouse, not out in the pasture, nor hanging out at the pond. Wakem climbs the hill to look for them. He's more tired than ever, but not quite too tired to doodle doo!

But then he hears a faint baaaa coming from the cave. It's the sheep, trying to find a quiet place to sleep. Wakem starts counting and soon...., he sleeps all night!

ZZZZZZZZ!

Is Wakem the Rooster finally back on schedule? David Fitzsimmons' Wakem the Rooster: Up All Night (Wild Iris, 2017) takes on the dilemma of getting your days and nights turned around, an especially pesky problem for any farm's feathered alarm clock. Artist Richard Cowdry, illustrator of the popular Bad Dog, Marley! and others in the I-Can-Read series, offers up vivid, comic scenes of the sleep-deprived barnyard denizens in a funny farm fable of too much of a good thing.