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[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a_sick_day_for_amos_mcgee.jpg]]
'''''A Sick Day for Amos [=McGee=]'''''' is a children's book by a married couple named Philip and Erin Stead.

It documents the job of a zookeeper named Amos who has a special bond with five of the animals (an elephant who he plays chess with, a tortoise who he races with and always loses, a shy penguin, an allergic rhino, and an owl who's afraid of the dark).

When he gets sick with a cold, they all come over to his house and take care of him by doing similar things to him as he does to them.

!! ''A Sick Day for Amos [=McGee=]'' provides examples of
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* AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal: The shy penguin wears socks and the rhinoceros wears a scarf.
* AnimalLover: Amos's best friends are all zoo animals.
* BittersweetEnding: Amos still hasn't fully recovered by the end of the story, but he's improving.
* CaretakerReversal: It's usually Amos who wipes the rhino's nose, but the rhino wipes Amos's nose when he gets sick.
* DiurnalNocturnalAnimal: The owl is seen awake in the daytime (perhaps due to his fear of the dark).
* GoToSleepEnding: The book ends with everyone going to bed.
* {{Manchild}}: Downplayed for Amos, who on the one hand sleeps with a teddy bear, talks to his sugar bowl, and plays hide-and-seek, but on the other hand is a competent zookeeper and plays chess.
* MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch:
** Played with for the tortoise. It's not clear whether he's unusually fast for a tortoise, or if Amos lets him win.
** The owl is afraid of the dark, even though owls are nocturnal.
* NearlyNormalAnimal: The animals have human-level intelligence and understand games like chess and hide-and-seek, and sometimes they sit like humans, but they can't talk (except, possibly, for the owl, who "read a story aloud" but it's unknown if he read it in English or AnimalTalk) and they behave more like very smart, docile animals than like humans.
* NoNameGiven: The animals are unnamed.
* NoseNuggets: Due to his allergies, the rhinoceros always has a runny nose.
* PlotAllergy: The rhinoceros has seasonal allergies, so he has a runny nose, which Amos takes it upon himself to wipe.
* ShrinkingViolet: The penguin is described as being very shy, and his favourite activity is just sitting quietly.
* SicknessEqualsRedness: Amos's nose is red when he wakes up sick.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Amos and the owl are both afraid of the dark.
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