Sleepless Beauty

Information for Students

Author: Frances Minters Title: Sleepless Beauty

Book Genre: Traditional Publishing Info: Vikings pp 28

Summary: This is a different version of the story Sleeping Beauty, with a little hip-hop twist. The story takes place in an apartment. The little girls name is Little Beauty. The wicked witch cursed her on her 14th birthday when she pricks her finger all will fall asleep for 100 years, the only way to break the curse is if a rock star will awake Little Beauty. On her 14^th birthday Little Beauty finger is pricked by the needle of a record player and falls asleep but awakes the next morning. How is this possible?

Personal Rating: * * * *

Rationale: Wonderful rhyming tale, retells sleeping beauty in wonderful well written present day version, easy to read plot, enjoyable, and wonderful illustrations.

Information for Teacher

Reading Level: 2.8 Interest Level: K-2

Thematic Areas: curses; intelligence; rhyming; modern tale; witches; family

Content Area: History; math; social studies; language arts

Potential Problems or Difficulties: Takes away the originality of the original Sleeping Beauty. Harsh view of what a birthday present should consist of. Presents are to show how much you care about someone; this story portrays a birthday present given out of anger and is harmful to the child.

Possible uses in classroom: Compare and contrast the original Sleeping Beauty to Sleepless Beauty. Have the students add up how old they would be if they slept for a 100 years. Bring a cassette player, CD player, and record player to school and discuss the differences. Play a rock star music CD for 100 seconds and 100 minutes. Let the students dance to the music using 100 different movements


Angie Blair