In My Dreams

""Every night, dreams lull me to sleep. / I try to stay awake to see where they come from, / but I always drift off...." A nameless, light-skinned child with long dark hair takes readers on a tour of their dreams in this translation from Dutch. Much like in a dream, there is no continuous plot or narrative, but Lada's gentle prose floats between reveries about beautiful clothes, the sea, and a rainy evening, all depicted with naïve illustrations that appear to be rendered in pencil. Forest animals in human clothes, friendly fish, and smiling children, most of whom have skin the white of the page, all welcome readers to the maze of dreamland in hazy shades of gray with a few pops of color. We see the narrator floating above the world on a feather and wandering through a garden. When the narrator winds their way back to the waking world, the visuals switch to full-color images with a watercolorlike look. The child now appears rested and confident: "I look the world in the eye / and...I am myself." Ephemeral imagery and a sleepy pace will surely bring only good dreams to tired young readers. A welcoming wind down." - Kirkus Reviews

"The nature of dreams is explored in this book of few words with stunning illustrations. A young girl describes the strange nature of her dreams, ever-changing apart from the last one that brings her back to consciousness. The dreams are illustrated in grayscale pencil apart from a single element on every page--a pink umbrella, a school of orange fish--until the girl peels back the corner of her dream and lets in the light and colors of the day." - Foreword Reviews *Starred Review*

Children's Book Council April 2023 Hot Off the Press reading list