Each week we look at a collection of a few books on a topic. You can explore the books on your own, or use them as a foundation for building a display in your library!

(All the book links below lead to Amazon; if you click on one and buy things from Amazon, CMLE may receive a small percentage of Amazon’s profits. Thanks!)

We often use a random word generator to come up with these topics, and when I clicked it and came up with the word Zonked, it was wonderful!

It’s cold outside, the days are still getting shorter, and all of this makes me want to take extra naps. And I  read all the time about the sleep shortage too many of us experience on a regular basis. But sleep is important! And it’s a wonderful thing! So, this week let’s look at some books about a lovely winter activity (to carry over all year): sleep.

 

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by by Matthew Walker. “Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive.

Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.

In this “compelling and utterly convincing” (The Sunday Times) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being. Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night’s sleep every night.”

 

Go the F**k to Sleep, by Adam Mansbach (Sorry for the implied language here; but if you have ever begged a small person to Just Go To Sleep!!, you understand where this tired dad is coming from! I have the audio version of this book, read by Samuel L. Jackson – and it is a delight!) 

“Go the F*** to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s verses perfectly capture the familiar–and unspoken–tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, they open up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations, and laugh at their absurdity.

With illustrations by Ricardo Cortes, Go the F*** to Sleep is beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny–a book for parents new, old, and expectant. You probably should not read it to your children.”

 

The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It, by W. Chris Winter M.D. “If you want to fix your sleep problems, Internet tips and tricks aren’t going to do it for you. You need to really understand what’s going on with your sleep—both what your problems are and how to solve them.

The Sleep Solution is an exciting journey of sleep self-discovery and understanding that will help you custom design specific interventions to fit your lifestyle. Drawing on his twenty-four years of experience within the field, neurologist and sleep expert W. Chris Winter will help you…

• Understand how sleep works and the ways in which food, light, and other activities act to help or hurt the process
• Learn why sleeping pills are so often misunderstood and used incorrectly—and how you can achieve your best sleep without them
• Incorporate sleep and napping into your life—whether you are a shift worker, student, or overcommitted parent
• Think outside the box to better understand ways to treat a multitude of
conditions—from insomnia to sleep apnea to restless leg syndrome and circadian sleep disorders
• Wade through the ever-changing sea of sleep technology and understand its value as it relates to your own sleep struggles”

 

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night’s Sleep, by Marc Weissbluth M.D.  (Note: there are a million books that claim to tell parents how to make their child sleep perfectly. My experience with this is: Good Luck. It doesn’t hurt to get some ideas, but we are not promoting any book as the one, true answer to solve any problems. Sorry!)

“Dr. Marc Weissbluth, one of the country’s leading pediatricians, overhauls his groundbreaking approach to solving and preventing your children’s sleep problems, from infancy through adolescence. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child’s natural sleep cycles. Rewritten and reorganized to deliver information even more efficiently, this valuable sourcebook contains the latest research on

• the best course of action for sleep problems: prevention and treatment
• common mistakes parents make trying to get their children to sleep
• different sleep needs for different temperaments
• stopping the crybaby syndrome, nightmares, bedwetting, and more
• ways to get your baby to fall asleep according to her internal clock—naturally
• handling nap-resistant kids and when to start sleep-training
• why both night sleep and day sleep are important
• obstacles for working moms and children with sleep issues
• the father’s role in comforting children
• how early sleep troubles can lead to later problems
• the benefits and drawbacks of allowing kids to sleep in the family bed

Rest is vital to your child’s health, growth, and development. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child outlines proven strategies that ensure good, healthy sleep for every age.”

Sleep Tight Farm: A Farm Prepares for Winter, by by Eugenie Doyle (Author), Becca Stadtlander (Illustrator)  (I love the pictures in this one!)  “A captivating exploration of how a family gets a farm ready for the snow of winter, Sleep Tight Farm lyrically connects each growing season to the preparations at the very end of the farm year. This beautiful and informative book paints a fascinating picture of what winter means to the farm year and to the family that shares its seasons, from spring’s new growth, summer’s heat, and fall’s bounty to winter’s well-earned rest. All year long the farm has worked to shelter us, feed us, keep us warm, and now it’s time to sleep.”

 

Dr. Sleep, by Stephen King. (No, this is not really a “sleep” book – it’s the sequel to The Shining!! If you are going to be awake anyway, you might as well have a scary story to read or listen to!)

“On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King canon.”