Alphabet of Dreams
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
In the city of the dead,
a dreamer awakens....
Young Babak has a magnificent gift: He can dream the future. Mitra, his brave older sister, is sworn to protect him. For them to survive living on the streets, she must do whatever is necessary -- including using her brother's talent for profit.
When Babak is asked to dream for a powerful Magus, he receives a mysterious vision of two stars dancing in the night. Determined to solve this prophetic riddle, the Magus takes the boy and his sister on an arduous journey across the desert. What they discover will change the world in a way that no dream could ever predict....
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This richly imagined novel invents a backstory for the famous Nativity tale of the three wise men Melchior, Balthazaar and Gaspar who follow a star in search of the prophesied king. Fletcher (Shadow Spinner) centers the story on Mitra, a Persian teenager, and her young brother, the fragile, kindhearted Babak. The pair was forced to flee after their father's unsuccessful coup attempt against the reigning monarch, Phraates. Mitra successfully disguises herself as a boy and a beggar until Babak unwittingly reveals his ability to foretell the future through his dreams. His prophetic visions attract unwanted attention, most perilously from Melchior, an out-of-favor Magus who kidnaps the boy so Babak can dream exclusively for him, despite obvious risks to the boy's health. (He grows weaker with every dream.) There's a bit too much going on two romances for Mitra, multiple escapes and recaptures, squabbling Magi and the pace occasionally advances as languidly as a camel journey from Persia to Bethlehem. But Mitra is feisty and honorable, and Fletcher, with lush and often poetic language, somehow ties her many strands together, drawing a subtle parallel between the humble circumstances of the unnamed baby's birth and the empathetic suffering of Babak, a prince in exile. Ages 12-up.
