PODCAST. Read by Michelle Dragony. A Sick Day for Amos McGee is a labour of love. It oozes painstaking effort, remarkable talent and a contagious enjoyment of life. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel grateful that there are still people out there prepared to undertake this kind of carefully slow-cooked project. Thank you!

In A Sick Day for Amos McGee, Erin Stead’s exquisitely pencil-drawn faces and use of colour bring zookeeper Amos, his animal friends and their story to life. It is a charming story about companionship and learning kindness through imitation, with several visual subplots involving the sock-wearing penguin and a red balloon, and a sort of parallel life for small animals including their own miniature bus-stop, with plenty more details to enjoy again and again and again and again.

The Story
Sweet zookeeper Amos McGee gets up very early every morning and, after his oatmeal and tea, gets on the number five bus to start a busy day’s work at the zoo. However busy he may be though, he always makes time to play chess with the elephant, let the tortoise beat him at a race, sit quietly with the shy penguin, wipe the allergic rhinoceros’s nose and read to an owl who is as fond of stories as he is afraid of the dark.

One day, Amos awakes to find he is ill and cannot make it to work. The animals wonder where their friend is and eventually decide to take the bus to Amos’s house and look after him for a change, playing chess, keeping his feet warm while he naps and wiping his nose until he starts feeling better.

Then the owl reads a bedtime story, and they all huddle together and go to sleep.   ~ We Read It Like This

If you like to read bedtime stories, like Michelle, contact the Buzz studios and come on down and record!

If you enjoyed listening to this bedtime story, you may enjoy reading it too. Find the book at Inkspell Books in Half Moon Bay!