The Farmer’s Pyjamas by Ruth Paul

I fell in love with Ruth Paul’s grey-haired, freckled, plump and slightly dishevelled farmer the moment I saw her on the cover. She’s a resilient character managing a busy farm single-handedly and successfully – until her pyjamas go missing and life on the farm slides into chaos.

Wellington-based Paul is both the writer and the illustrator, and her cheerful drawings enrich the rhyming story.

The happy farmer has a solid routine caring for the many animals on her farm, as well as her garden.

                She milks the cow, counts the sheep, sings the piglets off to sleep.

She herds the hens into the coop, stables the horse, and scoops the poop.

At day’s end, she brushes her teeth and her hair and (usually) settles down for the night in her favourite pair of pyjamas. But one night her pyjamas aren’t in their usual place…

                Without her pyjamas all covered in sheep, the weary farmer CANNOT go to sleep.

The farmer’s routine is disrupted. She buttons her shirt the wrong way, milks the sheep instead of the cow, and forgets to do regular chores. Another night of insomnia leads to more havoc on the farm. Never fear – the animals unite to look for the missing pyjamas. The piglets reframe the search party as a pyjama party and an intensive hunt begins. There’s a happy – and surprising – ending!

The Farmer’s Pyjamas is a wonderful book to read aloud. Children will enjoy the playful rhymes and engaging story. Adults will appreciate the extra details in the illustrations (such as the animals’  facial expressions and the rugged farmer’s choice of undergarments) and how accurately Paul expresses the overwhelming fatigue that comes from night after night of broken sleep.

The endpapers in this hardback book are sheep, of course.

Reviewer: Anne Kerslake Hendricks

Walker Books