Imagine a Day

by Sarah L. Thomson, Rob Gonsalves (Illustrator)

Overview

Imagine a day when your swing swings you higher than the highest treetops. Imagine a day when you can ride your bike up a path of falling leaves into the very tree they are falling from. Imagine a day when you release a handful of blue balloons into a cloudy, gray sky to create a postcard-perfect day. Imagine a day when the ordinary becomes the extraordinary...a day when anything is possible.

Imagine a Day is the companion book to the critically acclaimed Imagine a Night, which School Library Journal declared "a fascinating foray into the imagination." Renowned Canadian artist Rob Gonsalves once again stretches the limits of visual exploration with his breathtaking paintings and encourages parents and children alike to look beyond the limits of the everyday world and imagine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689852190
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	02/01/2005
Series:	Imagine a...
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	355,006
Product dimensions:	11.00(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sarah L. Thomson's other books include The Dragon's Son, which was named one of the best science fiction, fantasy, and horror books of 2001 by Voice of Youth Advocates; Stars and Stripes; and Imagine a Night. She lives in Maine.

Rob Gonsalves grew up drawing images from his imagination. Before becoming a full-time artist, Mr. Gonsalves worked as an architect. He began exhibiting paintings in Toronto in 1990, and his work is now shown throughout North America and beyond. His picture books are Imagine a Place, Imagine a Night, and Imagine a Day, which was the recipient of the Governor General’s Literary award. He currently lives in Ontario, Canada.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 3-6-Gonsalves awakens young readers from the twilight fantasy of Imagine a Night (S & S, 2003) and invites them to visit his evocative dreamscapes in broad daylight. The "wow" factor in every image is high, though some of the acrylic paintings pack more of a conceptual punch than others. The illustration that accompanies "imagine a day-/-when your house enfolds you/like a nest,/rocking gently/in the autumn wind" is definitely pretty neat. But "imagine a day-/-when you forget how to fall" is more deeply powerful, insightful, and visually demanding. The dust jacket copy indicates that Gonsalves's influences include such surrealist masters as Varo and Magritte, but picture-book aficionados-children included-are likely to associate these sophisticated, sensitive acrylics with other kid-friendly art by the likes of Anthony Browne and Chris Van Allsburg. Every image, from first to last, gives viewers plenty to ponder in their quieter moments, and older readers with artistic sensibilities will be as inspired as their younger siblings. Like Gonsalves's art, this riveting, memorable book works on many levels.-Catherine Threadgill, Charleston County Public Library, SC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

"Imagine a day . . . when the edge of the map is only the beginning of what we can explore." Like its companion, Imagine a Night (2003), this showcases Gonsalves's Escher-like, surrealist art, paring oblique captions to a series of transformations. Children step onto, and then into, a map; a high stone bridge dissipates into grey sky while its arches become sailing ships; fence pickets become skyscrapers; pines change into a forest of green-roofed cathedrals; each book on a shelf becomes a doorway to a different scene. There's no plotline, but the artist populates his precisely detailed paintings with grave-looking adults and children, thus creating a formal air that nicely underscores the general sense of mystery. Viewers who enjoy poring over such painterly imagination-stretchers as Quint Buchholz's Collector of Moments (1999) or Sarah Perry's If- (1995) will sink into this, too. (Picture book. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews