Roar of a Snore

Before you had a baby, did you think they could snore? I guess I imagined a cute little buzz emanating from my little cherub's body. But let me tell you. Maya knows how to snore. Especially when she has a stuffy nose.

In Roar of a Snore, by Marsha Diane Arnold and illustrated by Pierre Pratt, another very small creature proves capable of creating a din.

Poor Jack Huffle is awoken by a horrendous noise:

A mighty snore!
A clamorous snore!
A thundering, ear-splitting,
Roar of a snore!

Jack checks to see if it's the dog, Blue. Nope. Jack and Blue check to see if it's Mama Gwynn. Nope. The three of them check Baby Sue, and so on, and so on. It's a building tale, gathering up quite a crowd, which finally finds the unlikely culprit asleep in the hay loft of the barn. So they all fall asleep there. Everything is peaceful again, except in the bedroom of Molly Olson down the road.

A word of caution-the lists of characters gets pretty long toward the end. Some friends were over last week, and the father was reading Roar of a Snore to their pre-schooler while the mother nursed their infant. After awhile I think he wondered if his tongue would make it to the end of the book. I might suggest, as Jason did, reading those pages pretty quickly, especially for younger children.

For older children with good attention spans, take your time and enjoy the expressive language in this book.

And of course, snore. I think I could only read this book aloud two ways, either to Maya when no one else is around to hear me make those horrible noises, or to a big group of kids who will appreciate hearing me make those horrible noises.