There are many people who take a good night’s sleep for granted while others would do anything to have it. In a world where caffeine is plentiful, doomscrolling is the number one activity behind pickleball, and anxiety is seemingly a cornerstone of our society, a good night’s sleep, for many, seems to be more unattainable by the day. Graphic storyteller Maureen Burdock has dealt with insomnia for much of her life and chronicles her journey in Sleepless Planet: A Graphic Guide to Healing from Insomnia, a book that’s part memoir, part self-help book, and part good sleep manifesto.
Burdock has suffered from insomnia since childhood. As an adult, she sought out doctors and specialists for quick fixes, including drugs and machines to help her breathe properly while sleeping. She eventually comes across a more holistic approach that includes diet, exercise, spirituality, and realizing how our culture of consumerism and progress are detrimental to our own mental health and even the health of the planet.
Far from a simple how-to-sleep manual, Burdock introduces a lot of concepts that don’t initially seem connected. The book can swing wildly from biography to environmental studies to dream studies and mediation. However, there is a slow and steady progression of ideas that are well-researched, according to the footnotes at the end of the book. Burdock’s work is broken up into four chapters, which helps break up the information she presents into manageable chunks and each chapter feels like its own separate book on better sleep. By labeling each chapter as one of the four elements (air, fire, earth, and water), Burdock also creates a mystical, dreamlike aesthetic that suits a book presenting an overall holistic approach to getting better sleep.
That dreamlike aesthetic is only reinforced by Burdock’s artwork, which, while eschewing color, presents a vivid landscape where slices of life are intertwined with symbolic imagery. Presenting information within comic panels along with pictures can often be more accessible, whether those pictures use illustration to demonstrate an idea in action or simply to create a sense of whimsy, what Mary Poppins would call a “spoonful of sugar” that helps the didactic text blocks be remembered. Burdock presents a lot of whimsy in the form of talking koalas, inanimate objects with expressive faces, and an anthropomorphic representation of menopause that smothers the author much in the same way an MMA fighter smothers an opponent.
Adult services librarians interested in purchasing this book should reconsider simply sticking this book in your library’s Graphic Novel collection. Consider putting it in your library’s nonfiction section with other books on diseases and how to cure them. It will improve the chances of a person in need of a good night sleep (and in need of advice from someone who’s lived with insomnia) finding it.
Sleepless Planet A Graphic Guide to Healing from Insomnia
By Maureen Burdock
Graphic Mundi, 2025
ISBN: 9781637790939
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+)
