Boat of Dreams
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- 10,99 €
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- 10,99 €
Publisher Description
Selected for the 2018 Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Books of the Year
2017 NYPL Best Books for Kids List
*2017 IPPY Independent Publishers Gold Medalist*
*Starred Review School Library Journal*
*Starred Review- Booklist*
*Brazil's 2015 Jabuti Award for best children's illustration*
How does a fastidious old man with bowler, umbrella, suspenders, and a Salvador Dali mustache come to live on a deserted island?
How does a boy come to live alone in an apparently deserted city? Are they separated by distance or by time? Does the man dream the boy? Does the boy dream the man? Is a blank paper in a floating bottle an invitation to imagine our futures? Is the man’s flying boat an encouragement to the boy to dream? Are the man and the boy the same person—the boy dwelling in the man’s memory? Is a message in a bottle the earthbound dreams of the elderly? Is a flying boat the unconstrained dreams of the young? This wordless, many-layered 80-page picture book invites all these interpretations and more. The intricately detailed illustrations reveal new wonders with each viewing. Neither children nor adults will ever tire of this wonderful testament to imagination, memory, and dreams.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Originally published in Brazil, Coelho's enigmatic wordless tale bridges picture book and graphic novel territory as it traces the surprising encounter between an elderly man in a ramshackle seaside cottage and a child in a distant city. After the wiry, mustachioed man discovers a note in a bottle, he's inspired to draw a fantastical flying machine, which resembles half of a sailing ship augmented with a nest of gears. The man sends his drawing back to sea, and the action shifts to the city, where a boy finds it in a letter in front of his home; how it got there from the bottle isn't revealed. After drawing himself (and his cat) into the picture, the boy sails the ship to meet the man in his dreams. Coelho (Books Do Not Have Wings) stages his story in dramatically lit, sharp-edged, and distinctly surreal panels and panoramas; his limited palette of blues and sepias conveys a strong sense of isolation, particularly in the boy's chilly, deserted city. It's a haunting story of inexplicable connections, and Coelho resists spelling out its mysteries, letting readers draw their own conclusions. Ages 7 up.