The Full Moon at the Napping House Padded: A moonlit bedtime tale of Granny, her grandchild, and a sleepy menagerie soothed to sleep by one tiny song

by Audrey Wood, Don Wood (Illustrator)

In this dreamy companion to the beloved classic The Napping House , a full moon is keeping everyone in the napping house awake! Finally, a musical visitor sends sleepy Granny, her energetic grandson, and their menagerie off to dreamland. Enjoy this padded board book at sleepy storytimes.
In the wide-awake bed in the full-moon house, everyone is restless! The moonlight is pouring in and no one can get to sleep: not Granny, her grandchild, the dog, the cat, or even a mouse. It's not until a tiny musical visitor offers up a soothing song does the menagerie settle down, and finally everyone is off to dreamland. With a patterned text and stunning paintings, Audrey and Don Wood reveal once again why they are picture book creators of the highest order. The Full Moon at the Napping House , the dreamy companion to their classic The Napping House , is now in a cozy padded board book edition—perfect for sharing at bedtime or anytime.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Storytime, Animals, Fiction, Family, Juvenile

30 pages, Board Book

First published September 1, 2015

About the author

Audrey Wood studied art and drama at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. She has owned an operated a book and import store, taught chldren's drama and art, and traveled throughout Mexico and Guatemala studying Indian folk art. She now lives in Hawaii with her talented family (husband Don and son Bruce, who have both collaborated with Audrey by illustrating some of her books).

Reviews

[Calista]

This seems to be a sequel to the ‘Napping House’ which I adored. It doesn’t feel like lightning hit twice here. Instead of all of them sleeping, no one can sleep on the full moon. Everyone is up until the cricket soothes the mouse and then everyone settles down. It’s still a cute idea, but it wasn’t as good as the first,

The artwork was lovely and had that same zany feel to it and the moon was full enough. The book didn’t work as well. That bed sure gets abused with jumping on it and animals and restlessness.

The nephew didn’t care for this story. He thought the chaos was funny, but the story was boring even while it’s funny. He’s simply too old for it. He gave this 2 stars.

[Ronyell]

Did you know that it has been over thirty years since “The Napping House” by Audrey Wood along with artwork by Don Wood had been published? Well, did you know that Audrey Wood and Don Wood made a companion book to the “Napping House” called “The Full Moon at the Napping House” in 2015? Well, I did not know this either until I just recently picked up the book and I must say that it certainly lives up to the original book’s expectations!

The story starts off with the full moon coming over the Napping House and its residents (a grandmother, a young boy, a dog, a cat and a mouse) are trying to go to sleep. But, the family has become restless during the night and it seems like they will never go to sleep until an unlikely visitor comes by the house…

Wow! I never would have thought that the day would come when I would see a companion book to Audrey Wood and Don Wood’s classic children’s book “The Napping House!” “The Napping House” has always been one of my most favorite reads during my childhood, especially during bedtime. So, imagine my surprise and delight when I found out that a companion book was being made for one of my most favorite childhood reads and I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by this companion book! I like the fact that Audrey Wood managed to keep the narrative of this story faithful to the narrative of the original book, while telling a different story in this companion book (such as the fact that in this story, the residents of the Napping House are actually having trouble falling asleep while in the original book, it focuses on them sleeping through the night). It seems like a reverse storytelling method of the original book and I found that approach to this companion book to be extremely creative as I am still reading the narrative of the original book, but from a different perspective. Don Wood’s artwork is as beautiful as ever before as the characters look exactly as they did in the original “The Napping House” book. I really enjoyed the humorous images of the boy, the dog and the cat playing around during the night while the grandmother is trying so hard to go to sleep as I found myself giggling at this display. I also enjoyed the more beautiful aspect of the artwork as we see the full moon shining through the house and making everything in the house glow in such beauty.



Overall, “The Full Moon at the Napping House” is a fantastic follow up to “The Napping House” that fans of the original book will certainly fall in love with! I would recommend this book to children ages four and up since there is nothing inappropriate in this book.

Review is also on: Rabbit Ears Book Blog

[La Coccinelle]

This is apparently a follow-up to a 1984 book called The Napping House, which I don't recall from my own childhood at all, even though it apparently won awards and was fairly famous. The Full Moon at the Napping House is cute, but I kind of found the child annoying. Don't give your kid caffeine before bed, or they'll be up all night! (Literally. You could see the progress of the moon as you turned the pages, and it rose from the horizon all the way into the sky and back down again before the little brat finally settled down. Poor grandma's not going to offer to babysit ever again!)

The pictures are probably my favourite part of the book. The text is the kind that builds with lots of repetition (sort of like the rhyme "This Is the House That Jack Built"), and I guess some kids would like it, but I found it a little boring. For me, it was far more entertaining to look at the pictures (because there's quite a bit to look at within them).

Overall, this isn't a bad children's book, but I don't think it'll ever be one of my favourites.

[Heather McC]

There is a noise that keeps all of the napping house residents restless.

[Tricia Douglas]

I love Audrey and Don Wood's books, especially the classic The Napping House. The Full Moon is a kind of sequel, I guess. Not everyone is sleeping in this one, instead they're all awake. So the story is told in the opposite way, repeated sequences trying to put every one to sleep. The pictures are again quality as are all those illustrated by Don Wood. This is a nice book to add to the Wood collection.

[Katie Fitzgerald]

So basically, 31 years after publishing The Napping House, Audrey and Don Wood went through their manuscript, used find and replace to change "napping" to "full moon" and "sleeping" to "restless" and called it a sequel. Who honestly thought this was a good idea?

[Jenny]

A perfect companion to the original, amazing book. Rich in the same vocabulary and mood-evoking lyricism, it will help move readers (and more importantly, listeners) from perky to a restful (and nap-ready) disposition by its closing page. And the illustrations! I am gushing! I love this Wood team as much in my late 30s as I did when I was 6!

[Jill]

A journey to sleep from restlessness for all those napping house residents. The illustrations are similar to the original book's but I'm still partial to those in the first. The wording here was beautiful with phrases such as, "who gentles the cat," and so on as the occupants of the house try to settle down for the night.

[Ursula]

 
THIS IS AWESOME! You don't even need the words! x)

I love this husband and wife team--they write and illustrate the best books! You should look into these--HECKEDY PEG is BRILLIANT!  xD
 

[Edward Sullivan]

This sequel is another cumulative tale for bedtime reading.

[Amanda]

Liked it a lot but didn't LOVE it; the fact that the boy & the granny did NOT fall asleep--that they were still restless--really bothered a co-worker of mine. (haha)

[Susan]

The kids at storytime found this to be a snoozer...

[Kimberly]

I don't think I've read the original, and this sequel did nothing for me. I got annoyed by the repetition.

[Lynn]

Fans of the Napping House may enjoy this, but I found it lacked the suspense and build up.

[Ash]

Stunning artwork

[Wade]

Not as good as the first but still a good book right before bedtime.

[Danielle]

This author wrote one of my favorite children's book which was The Napping House. In this book it is a little different from the other book Audrey has written. This book is about a grandma, a boy, and other animals all being restless. While in the book The Napping House it is the opposite of that. I really enjoyed reading another book by Audrey Wood.

[Amy]

I love storybooks by Audrey and Don Wood. I do not think we will ever be too old to enjoy a good storybook.

[Christian Schultheiss]

I may or may not have read and logged the first in this series on here and noticed that a sequel to one of my absolute favorites was released, and then proceeded to immediately order it online for both my own reading pleasure as well as my sons… that would be crazy.

[Cynthia Varady]

Cute rhyme scheme and repetition in the ilk of This is the house that Jack built.

Everyone's awake in this house with the full moon shining in the window, that us until the cricket shows up and sings everyone to sleep.

[Krista]

This sequel to The Napping House, Wood’s award-winning tale of a dozing dog, on a dreaming child, on a snoring granny, on a cozy bed, in a napping house, where everyone is sleeping on a rainy day, also incorporates the step and repeat style which is “the music of language”. This book repeats what happened on the previous page while adding another step of the story on the next page. Full Moon at the Napping House features these same characters, however, they are restless at night while the full moon shines brightly. The books are parallel in structure, though the themes are reversed. This is the Audrey/Don Wood author/ illustrator pairing at its best; a brilliant display of why their work is so well-loved.

[Ryan]

My first day as a children’s librarian, it was mandated that I read The Napping House. It was to our department the ultimate book for story time. It had been often repeated, and redone, but never quite outdone. And now, years later Audrey and Don bring us a sequel. However in this house, everyone is restless and trying to go to sleep. It follows in the same beloved pattern of the bed, the granny, the child, the dog, the cat, the mouse, etc. And it is all to be blamed on the full moon. An excellent sequel.

[Becky B]

No body is going to be doing any sleeping in the Napping House. Everyone is too active. Can something help the Napping House quiet down?

Like the first Napping House this story builds phrase by phrase as it goes on. The repetition will make it easier for pre-readers to "read" the book. I like that all the characters are in the very first illustration and are introduced one by one. You can predict who is going to enter the story next by the pattern. See if kids can predict and read along with older readers.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Stupid idea - it was very ill-advised to write the world's most predictable "sequel". Who is the audience for this piece of garbage? Just pretend that it doesn't exist. Nothing about this is even worthy of discussion. Once you have read the original, there is nothing at all to this book. If it were written by some nobody as a parody, it would be one thing, but the fact that the original authors actually undertook this is really depressing.

[Sarah]

Sequel to The Napping House and quite its opposite. In the original everyone is sleeping and is woken up; in this one, no one can fall asleep during a full moon. Told in rhyme and repetition, this will be a great book for bedtime, or for teaching pre-reading skills in the classroom.

[Nadina]

A lovely story with a wonderful rhythm and pace. I like how the pages started off by building up upon one another first 2 lines, then 3, then 4, etc., until it reached it's climax and then the pages were broken down into individual lines as everything was resolved.
I liked the illustrations and how they also built on each other and connected to each other so nicely, with just enough detail.
Great night time/bedtime story for kids.

[Melanie Hetrick]

Following the flea bite commotion in the "Napping House" this cumulative tale has a restless Granny who then wakes up the rest of the creatures in her bedroom under the full moon. But all is not lost; a sweet cricket sings his nightime song to soothe everyone to sleep.

Reading both "napping house" books as a pair during storytime would be a big hit.

[Liz]

3.75 Stars
A cumulative tale following up on the Woods' classic THE NAPPING HOUSE. Great bedtime story for young ones, ending with the grandma reading in bed to her grandchild. The cricket's song soothes the mouse and has everyone feeling calmed and snuggly.

[Kris Dersch]

Perfectly fine book but as a follow up to the original I found it less than satisfying. It isn't different enough to have lets of its own, so while it's nice to revisit this family it feels like more of the same. For sure a satisfying bedtime story but I wanted more.

[Hope Irvin Marston]

The youngest children will love the illustrations, while those a bit older will soon have the story memorized within a few readings. Then they will enjoy "reading it" along with the adult who is sharing the book with them.