Just a Dream

by Chris Van Allsburg

Overview

Walter is a litterbug who does not appreciate the beauty of nature, or understand his role in keeping the planet healthy . . . until a fantastic journey shows him the tragic fate that could befall Earth if humans like him are not more careful. Are Walter’s actions really helping his planet along the road to destruction, or is it all just a dream?

Chris Van Allsburg’s classic story of environmental responsibility is now available in this special paperback edition with french flaps.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547520261
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	03/07/2011
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	26,409
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

CHRIS VAN ALLSBURG is the winner of two Caldecott Medals, for Jumanji and The Polar Express, as well as the recipient of the Caldecott Honor for The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. The author and illustrator of numerous picture books for children, he has also been awarded the Regina Medal for lifetime achievement in children's literature. Chris Van Allsburg was formerly an instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife and two children.

Hometown:

Providence, Rhode Island

Date of Birth:

June 18, 1949

Place of Birth:

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Education:

University of Michigan College of Architecture & Design, 1972; Rhode Island School of Design, MFA, 1975

Website:

http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Van Allsburg reaches a new pinnacle of excellence in both illustration and storytelling . . . His fable builds to an urgent plea for action as it sends a rousing message of hope."—Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

"Van Allsburg reaches a new pinnacle of excellence in both illustration and storytelling . . . His fable builds to an urgent plea for action as it sends a rousing message of hope."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Two-time Caldecott Medalist Van Allsburg reaches a new pinnacle of excellence in both illustration and storytelling in his latest work. Since his first book, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi , appeared just over a decade ago, he has spun many strange and fantastic modern fairy tales, all of which spill over the edge of reality into magnificent dreamscapes. Here Van Allsburg introduces Walter, a boy who imagines the future as a marvelous time, with tiny airplanes that can be parked on the roof of your house and robots that take care of all your work for you. In the present, however, Walter is a litterbug who can't be bothered to sort the trash for recycling and laughs at Rose, the girl next door, because she receives a sapling for her birthday. One night, when Walter goes to sleep, his bed travels to the future. But he finds neither tiny airplanes nor robots, only piles of trash covering the street where he used to live, acres and acres of stumps where forests used to stand, rows and rows of great smokestacks belching out acrid smoke, and many other environmental nightmares. Van Allsburg renders each of these chilling scenarios in elaborate, superbly executed two-page spreads that echo the best work of M. C. Escher and Winsor McKay (creator of the Little Nemo comic strips).pls call Gil Sprague at 201-653-4055 and make sure this addition is OK by him. also, are these the only artists whose styles come to mind when he looks at these pictures? Walter and his bed land right in the middle of the action in each of these hallucinatory paintings, heightening the visual impact and forcing a hard look at the devastation surrounding Van Allsburg's protagonist. An awakened Walter, jolted by his dream, changes his ways: he begins to sort the trash and, like Rose, plants a tree for his birthday. Then his bed takes him to a different future, one where people tend their lawns with powerless mowers and where the trees he and Rose have planted stand tall and strong beneath a blue sky. Not only are Just a Dream 's illustrations some of the most striking Van Allsburg has ever created, but the text is his best yet. Van Allsburg has sacrificed none of the powerful, otherworldly spirit that suffuses his earlier works, and he has taken a step forward by bringing this spirit to bear on a vitally important issue. His fable builds to an urgent plea for action as it sends a rousing message of hope. All ages. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This well-written fable offers a plea for environmental action and sends a message of hope for future generations. In this story, a young boy litters and refuses to sort trash for recycling, until he has a dream about an overcrowded and polluted future world. When he awakens from his terrifying nightmare, Walter rearranges his priorities and learns how to become ecologically conscious.

Children's Literature - Debra Briatico

Gr 2-5-- Walter, an environmental ignoramus of a 10 year old, is careless or scornful of such elementary actions as recycling or tree planting. One nightmarish evening, however, he visits a future where his daydreams of technological paradise are demolished. Instead, there is merely a horrifically exacerbated continuation of today's eco-problems: landfills, expressways, smog, lifeless oceans, and vanished wilderness. Walter awakens reformed, and is rewarded with another dream: the future redeemed. As the story exhibits Van Allsburg's ``signature'' character (a child free of adult supervision) and plot (the dream-vision), so the pictures display the hallmarks of the artist's style: bird's- and worm's-eye perspectives, dramatic lighting effects, some geometric simplification of forms. Wordless double-page spreads alternate with pages of text and small vignettes. The abstract beauty of the images produces a curious tension with the idea of a barren and ugly future; the stylized orderliness of the art is itself eerily disturbing. That this depicts the nightmare of a child may excuse some inconsistencies (in an utterly ruined environment would trees still be cut down for toothpicks?), but the real disappointment comes at the end. Walter's utopian vision is an unchildlike nostalgia trip: a suburban reprise of the '40s. Such a sentimental and parochially narrow vision of a future for a privileged few is the chief failure of this well-meaning effort. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle

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