Some tonal inconsistency, but overall, an original, entertaining YA fantasy.
A young boy discovers a dream world that exists between the cracks of reality in his home in this omnibus of the first five books of Batt’s Tales of Dreamside series.
Keaghan is a seemingly ordinary kid who one day accidentally slips into a magical reality called the Dreamside, which is full of lost things both from Keagan’s real life and his dreams. It’s inhabited by small, twiglike creatures—the Caretakers and the Knitters. As Topit, the main Caretaker who befriends him, explains, all homes have a Dreamside. As a Caretaker, his main responsibility is to ensure that everything runs smoothly, while the Knitters mend the holes in reality that are torn whenever someone dreams. In the first novel, Keaghan becomes acquainted with this strange world and eventually finds his way home. The second through fifth follow a longer arc; all Dreamsides are under attack by malevolent creatures known as the Tomsi, who seem to have been set off by Keaghan refusing to give them his lost tooth, causing him to take up a quest to save the land and friends he’d grown to love. This is a phenomenally imaginative series, with a strong, relatable child protagonist, collected in this handsome, beautifully illustrated edition. It can also be appealingly dark, with eerie fairy-tale motifs such as the clever concept that the Tomsi once required a tithe of children’s bones, until they agreed to take teeth instead, thus explaining the origins of the Tooth Fairy myth. If it has any major faults, it’s that these richer, wickedly funny elements don’t always rest fully easily with the books’ otherwise lighthearted tone and sometimes simplistic morals. The former seem more suited to slightly older children raised on Roald Dahl novels, while the boy’s epiphany at the end of the first novel that “A home is a dream of love made real” feels targeted to a much younger crowd.
Some tonal inconsistency, but overall, an original, entertaining YA fantasy.Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0990638506
Page Count: 388
Publisher: StoryJitsu
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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