Where do children go when they fall asleep? When educator Charli Rivera was raising her children, Garrett and Madison Hamlin, they would spend bedtime chatting about how they would all meet up in Sleepy Town and the adventures they would have there.
“Bedtime was just a special little time to connect and share and dream,” Rivera said. “Right before bed, the question every night was, ‘Where are we going to meet, and what adventures are we going to have?’”
Rivera’s children are now grown and raising families of their own, but the memories are still with them. In 2010, Rivera wrote down the stories of their nightly adventures as a keepsake for the family. At her son’s wedding last year, as the family gathered together and talked about how meaningful the nightly routine was to them, she realized she could turn the keepsake into a book series.
Garrett and Madison at ages 5 and 3
For Rivera, who taught most recently at Cabot Public Schools, the goal was just as much about helping children learn as about helping families make memories together.
“I was in the classroom for 18 years, and I taught science and social studies for the past five years. I just saw how often kids would struggle with reading, and it was a challenge to really try to move forward a lot with the science and social studies when the reading foundation wasn’t there, so it affects every subject,” she said. “That, along with how much Sleepy Town meant to my family, kind of helped me in my teacher’s heart to try to circle back and think to get kids to love reading and look forward to that time.”
She chose to focus full-time on the project, turning the 2010 manuscript into a more polished series of books, the first of which she self-published on Amazon in May.
“The first book is kind of laying the foundation,” she said. “There’s a lot on the first few pages about just the bedtime routine of all coming together as a family and talking about the happiest part of your day and all the things that the kids do before bed.”
After they fall asleep, the family goes on an adventure in Sleepy Town.
“It kind of all stays calm and relaxing so that it’s nothing to get kids too wired up right before bed,” Rivera said. “It’s just a lot about togetherness and connection.”
The book, Sleepy Town Adventures: Welcome to Sleepy Town, is available on Amazon and the Sleepy Town Adventures website, along with a coloring book and a Spanish translation.
Rivera also hosts story times at local libraries and other locations, during which she reads Sleepy Town Adventures and other books.
“It’s been really great,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of really sweet messages from moms and parents who have had great experiences with kids reading the book. Moms have reached out and said how maybe their child was struggling with anxiety before bedtime or bad dreams, and now they look forward to bedtime because they can dream and talk about Sleepy Town.”
In June, she started the Sleepy Town Adventures Across America 50 states challenge to see how far readers could take the book.
“It’s been pretty amazing because there have been so many fun pictures submitted,” Rivera said. “I’ve even gotten several pictures from other countries. I’ve got pictures from Ireland, from China, from Canada, and there have been books ordered in Germany, so it’s been pretty exciting to see the adventure unfold.”
A second book, focused on belonging and inclusion, is set to launch in November. Rivera said a German translation of the first book is also in the works. Overall, she has plans for at least 10 Sleepy Town books.
“There will be more coloring books to come because there are so many endless adventures,” she added. “My kids have some pretty great imaginations, along with my grandkids now, and so lots of fun things in store for Sleepy Town.”
She said she hopes the series will encourage families to cherish the time they have together while helping children improve their reading skills.
“When families can have an actual paper book in their hand, sitting next to a child that they love and just focusing and having that connection, you can’t replace that time,” she said. “My biggest hope is that families just slow down, build that lifelong love of reading, cherish the magic of childhood and then end their days together with love, faith and wonder.”
To keep up with the latest news, find Sleepy Town Adventures on Facebook and Instagram.
Photos courtesy of Charli Rivera
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