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
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: The shy penguin wears socks and the rhinoceros wears a scarf.
- Animal Lover: Amos's best friends are all zoo animals.
- Bittersweet Ending: Amos still hasn't fully recovered by the end of the story, but he's improving.
- Caretaker Reversal: It's usually Amos who wipes the rhino's nose, but the rhino wipes Amos's nose when he gets sick.
- Diurnal Nocturnal Animal: The owl is seen awake in the daytime (perhaps due to his fear of the dark).
- Go-to-Sleep Ending: 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.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much:
- 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.
- Nearly Normal Animal: 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 Animal Talk) and they behave more like very smart, docile animals than like humans.
- No Name Given: The animals are unnamed.
- Nose Nuggets: Due to his allergies, the rhinoceros always has a runny nose.
- Plot Allergy: The rhinoceros has seasonal allergies, so he has a runny nose, which Amos takes it upon himself to wipe.
- Shrinking Violet: The penguin is described as being very shy, and his favourite activity is just sitting quietly.
- Sickness Equals Redness: Amos's nose is red when he wakes up sick.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Amos and the owl are both afraid of the dark.
