HANK HAS A DREAM

Little bear Hank dreams away, watched over by his hummingbird friend.

This setup is on the title page. When he awakes, the tiny bear excitedly tells his friend, “Last night I dreamed I flew!” The double-page spreads then show Hank telling his friend of his adventures on the left-hand pages, while the right-hand illustrations, vignettes inside ovals of dark, starry sky, show Hank’s dream. In a nice touch of design consistency, his postures echo across the gutter. On the left, he’s seated on a plank bridge across a gorge; the right shows him seated on the side of his hot air balloon basket, suspended over the sea. Cleverly, the scenes also echo left to right. As Hank describes flying far away and out past the trees, he re-creates the scene for his friend, using a rope swing to swing out over a hill and past the trees on it; in his balloon, he’s holding the basket’s rope in his paws. The artwork is what makes Hank’s story shine. Made from paper, fabric, stone and other objects, the dioramas are meticulously crafted, posed and photographed, creating scenes that are full of texture and feature both in-focus and soft-focus layers.

Choose this book for the art, as the dream Hank recounts doesn’t make for much of a plot.