My friend Jess sent me this book as a present unaware that I had already been emailing with Dallas Clayton, the author and illustrator. He completely sold out of his first run of this self-published book and was unable to send me a copy. Luckily one of his sales had been to my friend Jess so I got one anyway. Normally I might find a title like this a little presumptuous but it actually is a really really awesome book. And whatever major publisher snags this up for mass production will no doubt have a new children’s bestseller. The book is about dreams and how you should have them. But your dreams should be exciting dreams (”of rocket-powered unicorns and candy cane machines, of magic watermelon boats and musical baboons”) and not boring ones like the kind some other people dream (”of buying a new hat, of owning matching silverware”) The whole book is set up in fun rhymes of the most imaginative dreams and the most boring. All of the text, which is wonderfully handdrawn in 3-d caps, is accompanied by equally outrageous illustrations that cover whole spreads. On the spread about dreaming of owning matching silverware, hundreds of pink, yellow, and blue forks, spoons, and knives spiral around the page in a wild pattern. On another spread, a monsters head is cropped in so tightly across the entire two pages that you only see his eyes and the bottoms of his ears and every single tiny hair. It’s one thing to think of the idea of “teeny tiny trumpet players training pet raccoons” but then Dallas also drew them. This book is so quirky and delightful in all the right ways. I can’t say enough good things about it. I could see this becoming a classic in the future, it’s that special. Go get this book- only $15. Hopefully some publisher will want to make millions of copies of this book too so we never run out again. Thank you Jess, thank you Dallas!

© Julia Rothman 2007