#14-Dream

Dream

Written by Susan V. Bosak

Illustrated by Wayne Anderson, Lou Fauncher, Christian Birmingham, Barbara Reid, Yang Huang, Michele Lemieux, Shaun Tan, James Bennett, Bruce Wood, Robert Ingpen, Raul Colon, Leo and Diane Dillon, and Mike Carter.

TCP Press, 2004

28 Pages

Poetry

"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly"
-Langston Hughes

    This is a story told in poetic form. It is a story about life and how in each stage in our life we see things differently. The main theme of the book is to never stop dreaming. Even when life gets hard we have to find the motivation to keep going. It is a very powerful book to help us see that we can achieve great things when we dream and make wishes. The book also has an inspirational quote on each double page spread.

     There are 15 illustrators for this book and all the illustrators have their own medium that was used. The mediums used include oil paint, pastels, 3-D plasticine photographed, watercolor, ink, collage, colored pencil, acrylic, and digital media. I love the fact that this book has so many different illustrators represented and so there are lots of different mediums used. At the end of the book is a list of each illustrator with thumbnails of the picture(s) they contributed to the book and it tells what medium they used and has a short bio for each illustrator. The book is laid out so that each section of life is a double page spread and is a different color. The book starts out in yellow and progresses through the rainbow of colors and ends back on yellow. Each color corresponds to the time in life talked about on the double page spread. The early years are colorful and then the teenage years are blue to represent the melancholy years of adolescence. As the person ages life goes to black and white to gray. Then the person remembers their dreams and the pages are green. This is a very colorful book, but the colors are a great way of representing the different stages of life.

     This would be a great book to start the beginning of the year out with. The students could write their wishes on a star. It would be a great way to help students realize that no matter how rough the school year may get, they can accomplish a great deal if they just put their mind to it. I think this book would be a great way to help motivate students at the beginning of the year. It would also be a great book for older students. It would be a great book to read to 6^th - 8^th graders close to the end of the year. The teacher could read it to the students and explain that as they make the transition from childhood to teenage years they need to remember their dreams. The teacher could have them make a list of goals and dreams they have so that they will stay encouraged as they go through the next stage in their life. Also at the back of the book it lists a website that students could go to and create their own Dreamer Profile. There are lots of activities that could be used on this website in the classroom setting.