Maynard Moose Tale Adopted by Kansas NEA Reading Circle

August House Inc. is pleased to announce that The Little Moose Who Couldn’t Go to Sleep, by Willy Claflin, has been named to the 2014 Kansas State Reading Circle. This month, The Little Moose Who Couldn’t Go to Sleep will be included in the Reading Circle’s 2014 list of best reading material for students at an intermediate reading level. The list is distributed free to all schools in Kansas, as well as twenty (20) other states.

The Little Moose Who Couldn’t Sleep is the fourth installment in Willy Claflin’s Maynard Moose series. Willy Claflin uses the voice of Maynard Moose to whimsically retell classic Mother Goose tales as silly “Mother Moose Tales.” Willy inserts wacky moose characters to replace more traditional characters and then creates wacky plot twists to give each tale a unique Maynard spin. The Little Moose story follows Maynard’s young cousin Little Moose as she struggles to go to sleep, tries a wild range of sleep inducing strategies, and finally learns how to calm her spinning thoughts enough that she can finally fall asleep. Like other classic folktales, The Little Moose Who Couldn’t Sleep highlights core character traits, in this case the values of patience, resourcefulness, and persistence.

Willy Claflin’s Maynard Moose books have won numerous awards, including the Texas Bluebonnet Award, Anne Izard Storyteller's Choice Award, Storytelling World Award and the NAPPA Gold Award. Book reviewers have lauded The Little Moose Who Couldn’t Go to Sleep. The Reading Room writes, “If you want a book that will spark the interest in your new book lover then this is one of the most delightful” and the New York Journal of Books says, "It is cute and funny, unique and whimsical, and has a good moral, too." School Library Journal writes, “If readers have enjoyed previous Maynard books, they need to wait no longer for more moosie silliness.”

Through its adoption by the 2014 Kansas State Reading Circle, a committee composed of five experienced school librarians and educators from across Kansas, The Little Moose Who Couldn’t Go to Sleep will appear in the Reading Circle recommendations catalog sent to all Kansas schools this January. School Library Media Specialists and Teachers use this highly respected catalog to determine course material and library acquisitions for their schools.