The book starts with a 18th century Japanese Haiku about a butterfly dreaming while folding its wings. The remainder of the pages contain alternating 3 and 4 line rhyming verses for snake, deer, newt, rabbit, mouse, and turtle. For each of the 6 dreaming animals in the book, the first page is a 4 line recounting of the animal’s activities during the day; the second page is 3 lines describing where the animal shelters at night to dream; the third page is 4 lines describing the animal’s dream; the fourth page is always a 3 line refrain, “Sleep, Little (animal)/ Safe and warm/ Dream until the light of morn.”  The Little Dreamer can be found exploring on each of the pages describing the animals day.  The book ends with the child, Little Dreamer asleep in bed dreaming of the six animals joining her until morn.

Rather than using this book as a bedtime read-aloud, use it for writing lessons focused on clear concise descriptive language and the use of text structure to reinforce a message.