Written by: Professor Alice Gregory & Christy Kirkpatrick

Illustrated by: Eleanor Hardiman

For ages: any age

Language: English

Topics Covered: Sleep, Meditation, Mindfulness, Family, Bedtime Stories. 

Summary: This book was sent to us by the publisher, Flying Eye Books, Nobrow in the UK, but all opinions are our own.

This book is a collection of stories meant to help with a smooth bedtime routine by incorporating mindfulness practices when children are falling asleep.  The book was first developed by Professor Alice Gregory and then a scientific study was run with 100 families to see if it would indeed help with sleep.  It turns out that 77% of families had positive experiences with the first version of the book.  After feedback was given, Alice Gregory improved upon the book and this is the one we have available today!

There are several sections for adults at the beginning of the book, explaining how the book came to be and how to best use the book incorporated into bedtime.  In the back of the book is a list of tips to help with a bedtime routine, and a Q&A section.

The 5 bedtime stories themselves are accompanied by adorable illustrations!  The stories are fairly short, just a few pages.  Within each story comes several mindfulness practices and breathing exercises to incorporate when reading the tale.  Picturing different aspects of the story, Pebble the small stone for instance, in the listener’s hand and breathing deeply engages them into relaxing and becoming more engaged with the story.  This book is unlike any other, and was a treat to read.  We highly recommend these sweet tales to incorporate meditation into the bedtime routine!  This book was developed specifically for the purpose of improving children’s sleep, which is a really cool concept to us.  I’m sure we all know someone that would benefit from better sleep!

About the Author & the Illustrator:

Alice Gregory is a Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths. She has contributed to several diverse research areas, including the longitudinal associations between sleep and psychopathology, behavioural genetics, sleep paralysis and exploding head syndrome. In addition to her scientific contributions she also excels in the public engagement of science. She has published a popular science book (Nodding Off, Bloomsbury, 2018) and has another book in development (Sleepy Pebble, Nobrow). She regularly contributes articles to the media and has had her work published in outlets including the Guardian, BBC Focus, GQ UK, Sud Ouest, Slate Fr, Independent.

Christy Kirkpatrick is a children’s and educational writer specialising in pre-school and primary literacy, including phonics and early reading, and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). She has a PhD in English from the University of London and a background working as commissioning editor for major academic and educational publishers. Christy works primarily on children’s books and resources with an academic or educational focus, and is the co-author of ‘The Sleepy Pebble and Other Stories: Calming Tales to Read at Bedtime’ (Flying Eye Books, 2019).

Eleanor Hardiman is an illustrator and designer from Bristol, UK. With a distinct, modern and clean illustrative style Eleanor has worked on a vast variety of national and international projects including illustrated books, magazine covers, advertising, packaging and illustrated windows. First Class Graduate of Falmouth University.

Want to chat about a project, or have any questions? eleanor.hardiman@live.co.uk