Sheep count flowers

Micaela Chirif and Amanda Mijangos
Buenos Aires: Limonero, 2020
ISBN: 978-987-47079-3-2

Do you know what sheep count to sleep? Flowers. One sunflower, two roses, three geraniums, four jasmine and so on. They also tell tales about rhinos, airplanes, rainbows, and other sheep that live far away.
Later, when they are already asleep, sometimes they have nightmares, and sometimes they fly free between blue, purple, green and white dreams.

Comments

“Sheep count flowers to sleep: one sunflower, two roses, three geraniums, four jasmine and so on.” With these words begins the poetic tale of the Peruvian author, just published by Limonero. If many of us count little sheep to attract sleep, what will sheep count when they can’t sleep? This is the idea that runs through the pages, illustrated with brushstrokes of colors that look like watercolors. Chirif, author of the award-winning book Inside a Zebra, published by the same label, also imagines that sheep dream of wolves and that before going to sleep “they tell stories about rhinos, planes, rainbows and other sheep that live far away”. A beautiful album with several layers of meaning.
Diario La Nación (The Nation Newspaper – Argentina)

“[The] relationship between verse and drawing is very powerful. Who illustrates whom? What came first? Text or image? The cohesion between the two makes one answer impossible, and better yet, opens another: Who dreams of whom? Sheep of boys and girls or vice versa? In Micaela’s text sheep are the dreamers; in the images, boys and girls. At the beginning of the book we see them trying on sheep and rhino and crocodile masks. Are they trying on masks or taking off a costume? But when they have fallen asleep they are just boys and girls. Are we freer in dreams? Do dreams allow us to return to the origin?
Adolfo Córdova. Linternas y bosques (Lanterns and woods).

“The fragmentary thoughts are like dreams themselves, and their sparkling boldness will draw those who long to wander the wilds of consciousness.”
Publishers Weekly

“If humans count sheep at night, what do sheep count? Sheep, who sleep on the grass in the absence of things like pajamas or pillows, have numerous ways to get themselves to sleep: They count flowers, and they tell stories about other animals (and “airplanes and rainbows”). Readers also learn they fly when they sleep, circling the sun; that some “sparkle in the dark”; and that they can always flee, just in time, from the wolves in their nightmares. Illustrations are trippy, dreamlike, and utterly beguiling, with intentionally off-centered compositions; occasional moments of exaggerated scale; unexpected perspectives; repeated moon motifs; and velvety, hazy washes of rich colors with intriguing textures and floating, fine-lined drawings of flowers, fish, birds, children (all pale-faced with dark hair) dressed as sheep; and more. Deep sapphire blues dominate, but they are balanced by pops of golden yellows, greens, and oranges. At one point, the text speaks directly to readers, urging them not to fret about flying sheep crashing into things: “Don’t worry!” Look closely at the spreads about nightmares to see that one child has befriended the very wolf once snarling. The final spread depicts one child falling asleep with an adult caregiver nearby. Final endpapers show children sleeping on various cloudlike shapes, with starbursts around them. Shared at bedtime, this richly imaginative story may launch children into vivid dreamscapes of their own.
Kirkus