In these free verse, mostly unpunctuated poems, Alarcón explores the world of both sleeping and waking dreams and his hope for a better world of tolerance and peace. Family members working together in their garden constitute a vision of cooperative society; people who exclude the dreams of others create a nightmare. In one poem, the young narrator imagines buffalo roaming free, whales singing opera and people living together peacefully. In another, he wants to be a happy onion who makes people sing instead of cry. Alarcón’s short lines are worked around Barragán’s richly colored, cut-and-paste style illustrations, which use silhouettes, small but exaggerated details and childishly thick figures to embody Alarcón’s utopian longings. Includes both English and Spanish versions of the poems. (Poetry. 7-11)
