Richie's Picks: THE DREAMER by Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis, illustrator,
Scholastic Press, April 2010, 384p., ISBN: 978-0-439-26970-4
He was a boy who stammered; who filled his pockets, room, and mind with
collections of all sorts of natural and seemingly random objects; and who
grew up with a father so abusive and controlling that the boy eventually found
it necessary to change his name in order to pursue his dreams.
"He loved the rhythm of certain words, and when he came to one of his
favorites, he read it over and over again: locomotive, locomotive, locomotive.
In his mind, it did not get stuck. He heard the word as if he had said it
out loud -- perfectly.
"Neftali climbed out of bed, retrieved a pencil and paper, and copied the
word.
locomotive
"He folded the paper into a small square and put it in a dresser drawer
already crammed with other words he'd written on tiny, doubled-over pieces of
paper. Then he crawled into bed.
"Father's question from yesterday found its way into his thoughts. Do you
want to be a skinny weakling forever and amount to nothing?
"The words in the drawer shuffled. The drawer opened. The small pieces
of paper floated into the room and arranged and rearranged themselves into
curious patterns above his head.
terrible locomotive
chocolate oregano
iguana
"Neftali sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked around the room. The words
were no longer there. He slid from the bed, tiptoed to the drawer, and
opened it.
"All the words were sleeping."
I guess that is as a good a place to begin as any. I am somewhat at a
loss for words or strategy in discussing this book. There is no every-day
hook to employ in describing this amazingly beautiful, engrossing, inspiring,
unique, and memorable master work of children's literature.
THE DREAMER is the dramatized, illustrated, magical story of the childhood
of Pablo Neruda. His given name was Neftali Reyes. He would grow up to
be a man of conscience who spoke out for the underprivileged, one of the
world's foremost poets of the twentieth century, and a winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature.
I had certainly heard the name Pablo Neruda, (and sold plenty of his books
back in my bookstore days), yet I couldn't have told you one fact about
him.
That has changed. You can ask me ten or twenty years from now about him
and -- thanks to what I just experienced -- I guarantee that I will have
plenty to share on the subject of Pablo Neruda.
"They heard Father's whistle. Two times, three times, and over and over,
unstopping.
"Laurita walked to the window. 'Has he gone mad?'
"Neftali jumped up and rushed to her side.
"A plume of smoke drifted upward from the pile of notebooks set on fire in
the middle of the street. Neftali yelled, 'No!'
"He bolted from his room, through the house, and jumped from the porch to
the yard. In several giant bounds, he stood on the edge of the street,
hoping to salvage something, anything. But he dared not reach into the
flames. Father stood between him and the makeshift bonfire, his eyes wild, his
mouth blowing the whistle again and again."
I have been waiting to read this book.
Two months ago, I attended Children's Book Day at Washington Irving's
Sunnyside in Tarrytown New York. While there, I had the good fortune to ask
Peter Sis what he had been working on. Sis, the MacArthur Fellow who has won
a Sibert Medal and a Caldecott Honor, spoke to me of working on this
project at length and in a tone of awe and excitement akin to that of an
explorer who'd just returned from previously uncharted lands.
I have been a fan of Pam Munoz Ryan's work for a decade, since the days of
RIDING FREEDOM and ESPERANZA RISING. Among her many awards, she has won a
Sibert Honor, the Pura Belpre Medal, and the Jane Addams Peace Award.
Nevertheless, her writing in THE DREAMER is career-defining, and moves her
into an even more select category of heralded children's book authors.
Together, Munoz Ryan and Sis repeatedly employ inventive use of words,
images, and space in crafting the story of the young and future poet: There
are both little bits and entire pages of playful, shaped sound poems, series
of Sis's images that foreshadow, and other illustrations that stamp a bold
exclamation point on the powerfully emotional scenes of Neftali's growing
up.
The tale concludes with a sourced selection of poems and odes by Pablo
Neruda. For the fortunate reader who finds and experiences THE DREAMER, these
selections will each have real meaning and, together, will serve as the
perfect entry point to seeking out more extensive collections of Neruda's
work.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
_http://www.librarything.com/profile/richiespicks_
(http://www.librarything.com/profile/richiespicks)
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator _http://groups.yahoo.com/middle_school_lit/_
(http://groups.yahoo.com/middle_school_lit/)
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks)
FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he
will Pick their books. You can figure that any review was written after
reading and dog-earring a free copy received. Richie retains these review
copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools
and libraries.
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