Imagine a Night

by Sarah L. Thomson, Rob Gonsalves (Illustrator)

Overview

Imagine a night when you can ride your bike right up the stairs to your bed. Imagine a night when your toy train rumbles on its tracks out of your room and roars back in, full sized, ready for you to hop on for a nighttime adventure. Imagine a night when a farmer plays a lullaby on his fiddle, and his field of sunflowers begins to dip and sway to the rhythm. Imagine a night when ordinary objects magically become extraordinary...a night when it is possible to believe the impossible.

With the intrigue of an Escher drawing and the richness of a Chris Van Allsburg painting, renowned Canadian artist Rob Gonsalves depicts that delicious time between sleep and wakefulness, creating a breathtaking, visual exploration of imagination and possibility that will encourage both children and adults to think past the boundaries of everyday life, and see the possibilities beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442440685
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	04/19/2011
Series:	Imagine a...
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	57 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
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

With a set of moonlit, dreamily mysterious scenes, each of which features an M.C. Escher-like transformation, Gonsalves invites viewers to drift past reality’s familiar borders. Thompson’s captions reflect what’s happening in each surrealistic painting: "Imagine a night when the space between words becomes like the space between trees. . . ," for instance, accompanies a scene in which floorboards change to shadowy forest behind an adult reading to children. On other spreads church windows, sunflowers, and reflections on water turn into human-like figures, a quilt becomes a patchwork landscape, and a toy train turns big. Beguiling fare for fans of the likes of Chris Van Allsburg’s Mysteries of Harris Burdick (1984), Steve Johnson’s As the City Sleeps (2002), or Quint Buchholz’s subtler Collector of Moments (1999). (Picture book. 6-12)

Kirkus Reviews