The Dreamer, written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Barry Moser, tells the story of a young artist who creates what he is dreaming of—the world. I did not really think I liked the book until I got to the last page two pages; until I got there I was generally just confused. I knew that the story must be related to the Bible story about the creation of the world, but I wasn’t completely sure what point the author was trying to make. It wasn’t until the last two pages that I understood the point; the last two pages said “The first young artist, still a dreamer, has always called them his children. And they, in turn, have always called him God.” Knowing this, I looked through the book again and enjoyed it more the second time than the first. The book seems to be aimed at teaching children about God’s creation of the world.
Because this book was written and illustrated by the same two people as another book I read recently, I expected it to be a lot like the other book. I was confused and surprised that it was not. I think that my expectation that this book would be similar to the other book was the main reason for my not quite knowing how I feel about this book. It was not at all what I expected it to be, and I kept trying to create connections between this book and
Moser used a lot of blues and greens in his pictures. This is probably because these colors reflect the colors normally found in the world and nature. The picture I enjoyed the most was one of the first ones, occurring after the artist had created the stars and heavens but before he had created the earth. The picture is of the heavens, drawn in a mix of dark blues and blacks, with yellow stars sprinkled in. It’s such a pretty picture. I’m looking forward to reading other books by Cynthia Rylant to see how they compare to the first two I have read.
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