These books have been out for a few years but for some reason, they just popped up in my grocery store yesterday. I grabbed each because they are so on target with our interests here, at The Armchair Dreamer. One book is devoted to visualizing-imagining (Day Dreamers) with the other well focused on dream recall and dream appreciation (Dream Animals).
Emily Winfield Martin is the author and illustrator of both books and describes herself as an armchair dreamer, “having many peculiar daydreams” as a child. As she moved into adulthood she “began to illustrate those daydreams.” You can learn more about her at the end of this article. I’ve included her author video in which she talks about how she illustrated and wrote Dream Animals.
These books are not storybooks. Instead of telling a story, they contain a challenge. In her Dream Animals: A Bedtime Journey, Emily puts a question out to the child reader/listener: “Will a dream animal appear tonight?” This is a subtle suggestion to the child to watch their dream world. A child, if highly captivated by this challenge, will look throughout the broad sleeping-dreaming experience. “Did an animal, a special animal, appear to guide me into the dream world?”
In Day Dreamers: A Journey of Imagination, children are introduced to the possibility that special things can appear if we look in a special way.
“They say there are no dragons left
And that’s the way it seems.
To find them you must visit
The land of waking dreams.”
“Your imaginings will carry you
Anywhere you seek.”
