Sheep count flowers

Micaela Chirif and Amanda Mijangos
Buenos Aires: Limonero, 2020
ISBN: 978-987-47079-3-2

♦ Argentina Key Titles 2021
♦ IBBY Mexico Children’s and Young Adult Books Guide 2023

Do you know what sheep count to fall asleep? Flowers. One sunflower, two roses, three geraniums, four jasmines, and so on. They also tell stories about rhinoceroses, airplanes, rainbows, and other sheep that live far away.
Later, when they are already asleep, sometimes they have nightmares, and sometimes they fly freely through blue, purple, green, and white dreams.

Reviews

“The sheep count flowers to fall asleep: one sunflower, two roses, three geraniums, four jasmines, and so on.” With these words begins the poetic story by the Peruvian author, recently published by Limonero. If many of us count sheep to bring on sleep, what do sheep count when they can’t fall asleep? This is the idea that runs through the pages, illustrated with brushstrokes of color that resemble watercolors. Chirif, author of the award-winning book Inside a Zebra, published in the country by the same imprint, also imagines that sheep dream of wolves and that before sleeping, “they tell stories about rhinoceroses, airplanes, rainbows, and other sheep that live far away.” A beautiful picture book with multiple layers of meaning.
La Nación Newspaper

“The relationship between verses and drawings is very powerful. Who illustrates whom? What came first, the text or the image? The cohesion between the two makes an answer impossible and, even better, opens another question: Who dreams of whom? Do the sheep dream of the children, or is it the other way around? In Micaela’s text, the sheep are the dreamers; in the illustrations, it’s the children. At the beginning of the book, we see them trying on masks of sheep, rhinoceroses, and crocodiles—trying on masks or taking off a disguise? But once they have fallen asleep, they are just children. In dreams, are we freer? Do dreams allow us to return to our origins?”
Adolfo Córdova, Linternas y bosques

“The fragmentary thoughts are like dreams themselves, and their sparkling boldness will draw those who long to wander the wilds of consciousness.”
Publishers Weekly

“If humans count sheep at night, what do sheep count? Sheep, who sleep on the grass in the absence of things like pajamas or pillows, have numerous ways to get themselves to sleep: They count flowers, and they tell stories about other animals (and “airplanes and rainbows”). Readers also learn they fly when they sleep, circling the sun; that some “sparkle in the dark”; and that they can always flee, just in time, from the wolves in their nightmares. Illustrations are trippy, dreamlike, and utterly beguiling, with intentionally off-centered compositions; occasional moments of exaggerated scale; unexpected perspectives; repeated moon motifs; and velvety, hazy washes of rich colors with intriguing textures and floating, fine-lined drawings of flowers, fish, birds, children (all pale-faced with dark hair) dressed as sheep; and more. Deep sapphire blues dominate, but they are balanced by pops of golden yellows, greens, and oranges. At one point, the text speaks directly to readers, urging them not to fret about flying sheep crashing into things: “Don’t worry!” Look closely at the spreads about nightmares to see that one child has befriended the very wolf once snarling. The final spread depicts one child falling asleep with an adult caregiver nearby. Final endpapers show children sleeping on various cloudlike shapes, with starbursts around them. Shared at bedtime, this richly imaginative story may launch children into vivid dreamscapes of their own.
Kirkus