Recent Read: Dream On, Amber

Dream On, Amber by Emma Shevah

 “You know how sometimes you get an idea? And then you follow that idea and complicate your life so badly that you wish it had never popped into your head? Yeah. That’s what happened. Me and my genius idea.”

Eleven-year-old Ambra Alessandra Leola Kimiko Miyamoto, who goes by Amber (“I have no idea why my parents gave me all those hideous names but they must have wanted to ruin my life you know?”), lives with her mom and six-year-old sister, Bella in South London. Her dad left the family when they were little. His absence feels like a gaping hole in Amber’s life. When Bella decides to write a letter to her dad, Amber has an idea. She writes Bella back, posing as their father, hoping to save her sister from the pain that she feels. But of course, this ruse proves difficult to maintain, especially with a sister who has a vivid imagination.

Funny, charming and poignant. This easily could have been sappy or didactic, but Amber’s spunky narration always moderates the more serious subject-matter. Family is central to the book, and while it does highlight the meaning of a dad and having one in your life, it also shows how family is family no matter who is or isn’t there. The way this family comes together and Amber tries to help her sister (even if it is a little ill-advised) is heartening. I loved the characters and enjoyed reading Amber’s narration. The letters exchanged between sisters cracked me up. This is a winner.

Picture This: The Bear Ate Your Sandwich

The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach

“By now I think you know what happened to your sandwich. But you may not know how it happened. So let me tell you.” 

So begins this story of a bear who finds a delicious treat in the bed of a pickup truck, falls asleep, and wakes up in the middle of the city. He explores this “new forest,” discovering climbing spots, new smells, places to scratch an itch, and a very delectable looking sandwich. You can probably guess what happens next.

The saturated illustrations invite the reader into a warm and dreamy world, created with acrylic paint and pencil. The facial expressions and movements of the animals throughout are wonderful and often add humor. But did you notice who is telling the story? The end reveals the narrator of this tale (a dog), immediately calling into question everything he just recounted—especially with that suspicious piece of lettuce right at his feet. And don’t forget to look at the endpapers!

Picture This: The Night World

The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein

In the middle of the night, Sylvie the cat wakes up her owner. She pesters him to follow her, to go outside. “It’s coming,” she says. Outside, his world is in shadow. The boy discovers the night world for the first time. All the familiar plants look different, animals he’s never seen are everywhere. They are anticipating the arrival of something special. Looking to the sky, a glow forms. It increases, and colors start to develop until everything is light and bright with the sun’s morning rays.

In the author’s note, Mordecai Gerstein describes waking up in the middle of the night at the age of four and seeing a foreign place where his backyard should be—it was the night world. In this book, he has created a foreign and wondrous night world on the page, filled with shapes and shadows. In grays and black, Gerstein fills each page with nighttime life. The sunrise is an explosion of color. Gerstein says in his note that he thinks watching a sunrise is like “watching the creation of the world,” and he captures that feeling in the pages.

Picture This: Rude Cakes

Rude Cakes by Rowboat Watkins

Rude Cakes is a silly and strange tale of a rude, ungrateful cake. In the middle of the night a gentle giant of a cyclops mistakes him for a “jaunty little hat,” takes him from his bed, and plops the cake on top of his head to wear. If that weren’t strange enough, it turns out that giant cyclopses are very polite and kind, and when the cake finally learns to say please, the cyclops apologizes and returns him to his home.

So much of this funny book is just absurd. It’s about a cake. You can tell it’s (the gender is not clear) young because it only has 2 tiers instead of 4 like its parents. You can tell which parent is the mom and which is the dad, because the dad has a frosting moustache. It steals a toy from a poor defenseless cupcake. When faced with a bath, it thinks “seriously… I’m a cake…How dirty can I be?” And then there are these giant oval blobs with one eye—the cyclopses—who like to wear “jaunty little hats.” And this cyclops mistakes the cake for a hat, so the cake ends up stranded on the cylops’s head. Meanwhile the cyclopses are so nice, so polite, they’re falling over each other to compliment the hat and wait in line to try it on (because of course a cyclops would share). It’s ridiculous…and hilarious. What’s more is that Rowboat Watkins (yes, that’s the author’s name) really nails the rudeness on the head, so despite all its silliness, it rings true.