What Winter's Nap? A Loud Winter's Nap by Katy Hudson

TORTOISE HAD JUST SNUGGLED IN FOR A LONG WINTER'S NAP.

Bears aren't the only ones who hibernate in winter, you know. But when Tortoise hangs his DO NOT DISTURB UNTIL SPRING, sign he overlooks another posting lower down on the tree.

His Winter Nap To Do List, dutifully checked off, Tortoise has just settled down for a long... well, you know... when of all people--Robin, that habitual harbinger of spring--appears to invite him to the winter woods singing class. Why isn't he down South already? And since when did robins need singing lessons?

Well, tortoises definitely DON'T!

"NO!" GRUMBLED TORTOISE. "I WAS TRYING TO SLEEP! TORTOISES DON'T LIKE WINTER!"

Tortoise grumpily packs up and heads out of earshot of all the Fa, La, La, La, Las, puts up his tent, and crawls inside. But Robin is determined that Tortoise is going to see what is welcome and wonderful about winter. How about joining him in an ice sculpture or two, he chirps? Tortoise repeats his mantra and moves off to hang his hammock between two snow-laden saplings when Squirrel appears to invite him to join in a snowball fight. No, and NO again!

"TORTOISES DON'T LIKE WINTER. THEY JUST DON'T!"

Tortoise moves again, this time with a tall ladder, and ascends to the top of a tall tree to start his long-delayed winter hibernation.

But he forgets about Beaver, always busy felling trees in the forest, and his arboreal bed comes down with the rest of the tree.

SWISH, SWISH, SWISH. KERPLUNK!

Is there no rest for the weary anywhere in these woods?

No one is going to bet that Tortoise's hibernation happens this winter, in Katy Hudson's new story of the season, A Loud Winter's Nap (Capstone Books, 2017). Hudson, the author of the Caldecott Honor-winning Too Many Carrots, has a winning wintry picture book with her latest, with her own illustrations of the carrot-swiping critters in her first book back again in this slapstick-funny story of an all-unwilling wide-awake tortoise in winter. Kids will be chiming in on Tortoise's oft-repeated lament, and they will cheer at the rousing ending in which Tortoise scores in a somnolent and impromptu slalom down the slopes after all. It takes all kinds, and just as there are two kinds of people--winter welcomers and winter avoiders--Hudson's little forest animals stand in as winsomely annoying snow day lovers in this delightful winter's tale.

Share this new one with Jane Yolen's classic Bear Snores On (The Bear Books), and for more winter animal lore, her Sleep, Black Bear, Sleep (see review here).