If You Are the Dreamer

by Kristen Balouch

Overview

A sweet ode to dreams of all kinds.

If you are the squirrel, I am the tree. If you are the traveler, I am the sea. If you are the writer, I am the nook. If you are the reader, I am the book.

In simple poetic language, a child is reassured that no matter what or where they are, they will never be alone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951836276
Publisher:	Cameron Kids
Publication date:	09/21/2021
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.85(w) x 9.75(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Designer, author, and illustrator Kristen Balouch has created eight books for children, including the Ezra Jack Keats Award–winner Mystery Bottle and the Golden Kite Award–winner The King and the Three Thieves. She has collaborated on projects such as exclusively designed toys and furniture for the Guggenheim Museum, fabric collections for Birch Fabrics, and fine art shows in New York City, and she has teamed with various licensing partners. She splits her time between a tiny top-floor apartment in Brooklyn and a farmhouse in the Adirondacks. She likes cooking, gardening, and wandering to scout out good food.

Editorial Reviews

2021-07-14
A series of loving images, mostly juxtapositions of animals and their surroundings, add up to a pleasing bedtime book.

Starting off a little awkwardly with “If you are the egg, I am the hen,” the text soon pivots to what becomes a pattern, with one statement per double-page spread: “If you are the bear, I am the den,” and then lines like “If you are the squirrel, I am the tree,” and “If you are the traveler, I am the sea.” The flat, naïve illustrations of the animals are rendered in a muted but attractive palette of pinks, reds, greens, and browns and are usually offset by a secondary object in a bluish gray. Small chicks inhabit each picture, supplying continuity. Vaguely reminiscent of The Runaway Bunny in its quiet rhythms, the text continues: “If you are the writer, I am the nook. / If you are the reader, I am the book.” These lines are illustrated with a skunk scrivening in a little gray space under a flight of stairs and an elephant cozily reading a gray book while sitting in a patterned green easy chair with its pink toes resting on a matching ottoman. The title is highlighted in the last two spreads, as a red fox sleeps amid the clouds and then a gray, blue, and white galaxy of stars unfolds, as the text reads: “And, if you are the dreamer… / I am the stars / holding your dreams, / whatever they are.”

Simple rhymes and warm images will invite young children to nod off quickly. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews