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    Dream Within a Dream
    Dream Within a Dream
    Dream Within a Dream
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Dream Within a Dream

    By Patricia MacLachlan

    4/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A young girl finds herself—and so much more—during a summer stay with her grandparents in this “sweet, evocative” (Kirkus Reviews) novel from Newbery Award–winning author Patricia MacLachlan.

    When Louisa (short for Louisiana) is sent to stay with her grandparents for the summer, she’s not looking forward to it. While her brother is determined to find a way to stay on Deer Island forever, Louisa would rather be off having adventures with their globetrotting ornithographer parents. She’s a writer, and there’s nothing on all of Deer Island to write about—right?

    Louisa quickly discovers that small doesn’t necessarily mean quiet, and the island has plenty of scope for the imagination. It also has George, the boy who helps her see the world in a whole new light.

    The end of summer is coming fast, and Louisa must decide what she really wants: travel the world with her parents, or stay on Deer Island with the people she’s only just learning to love?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMargaret K. McElderry Books
    Release dateMay 7, 2019
    ISBN9781534429611
    Dream Within a Dream
    Author

    Patricia MacLachlan

    Patricia MacLachlan (1938–2022) was the author of many well-loved novels and picture books, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal; its sequels, Skylark and Caleb’s Story; Edward’s Eyes; The True Gift; Waiting for the Magic; White Fur Flying; Fly Away; and Snow Horses. She lived in western Massachusetts.

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    4/5

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    • 3/5
      While their parents are away doing bird research, Louisiana and her brother Theo spend the summer with their grandparents Jake and Boots at their island home. Jake’s vision is going and Louisa fears the changes that will come with it. Boots says “Change comes, and sometimes you can’t do anything about it.” Changes do come and they are surprising and good, including a special new friendship with George. George and Louisa talk so formally. No kids talk like that!
    • 3/5
      Louisa and her brother Theo are spending the summer with their grandparents as they do every summer. But this year things are different -- their grandfather is increasingly losing his vision, Theo wants to live with their grandparents year-round, and Louisa meets George to instant mutual attraction. But Louisa doesn’t like change and isn’t sure she can handle this all.I picked up this slim book by the author of Sarah, Plain and Tall (which I loved as a child), thinking I could finish it in an afternoon. However, I just couldn’t get into it and it took me more like two weeks to complete it. The book is written simply like for a young child, but then the vast crux of the story is essentially a romance between two 12-year-old characters, with all the adults nodding their approval and acting like these two are soulmates. Perhaps I’m being either overly cynical or overly prudish, but I don’t see two middle schoolers falling in love and staying that way forever; I also don’t think the target audience is super into romance novels. For example, here’s a passage from the book:George takes my hand and puts his arm around me, and we dance, turning around, his face close to mine.“We’ll have eggs later,” George whispers in my ear, making me smile.He pulls his face away from mine so I can see him smile too.We don’t know how long we dance, Jake and Boots, George and I. It could be minutes or longer. An hour maybe. George puts his hand on my cheek. I suddenly remember the day he first put his hand against my hair and how that changed me.I move closer to him, our faces almost together. I think about kissing him.Then he stops dancing.“What?” I whisper.He begins to dance again.“Silence,” he whispers.And suddenly I know that George doesn’t mean no music.The storm is over. Only rain. No whining wind. No hail against the windows. Silence.I kiss him.Too fast for Boots and Jake to see.It’s not exactly thrilling reading in my opinion and again, not particularly what kids really love to read. Some minor things that I didn’t like is how all the adults were referred to by their first name or nickname (e.g., “Jake” instead of “Grandpa”) and despite being a short book with a limited cast, Maclachlan for some reason chose some similar sounding names for some characters (e.g., Jake/Jack and George/Georgia).There’s some attempt at diversity with George and his family being from Africa and another family who seem to be Latinx immigrants. Sadly, Maclachlan still falls into some traditional gender roles throughout the book, such as when after a bad storm the male characters (young and old) all fix the barn roof and chop fallen trees while the female characters (again, young and old) cook food and cut bouquets of flowers.Overall, it’s a pretty sappy story in which nothing bad really happens and everything ends up better than it should (hence, the dream within a dream title). I guess it's fine if someone is looking for a feel-good read, but it didn't do much for me.

    Book preview

    Dream Within a Dream - Patricia MacLachlan

    Prologue

    My grandfather Jake’s Deer Island farm runs down to the sea—sweet grass slipping to water.

    Sometimes seals sun on the warm sand.

    There used to be a large flock of sheep in the field that the townspeople would help shear twice a year. Now there are only three sheep—Jake’s favorites: Bitty and Flossie and Flip.

    Other things have changed.

    My grandfather is losing his eyesight.

    He can still take care of his three sheep.

    He can still cook.

    He can read when he uses a large viewing machine.

    But soon—the worst thing of all—is that he may not be able to drive his beloved 1938 midnight-black Cord car with running boards.

    He has proudly driven my grandmother to town for years when she doesn’t walk or bicycle to the store.

    He has driven his colorfully decorated car in parades and on the Fourth of July.

    He has washed and polished the car.

    He has loved the car.

    Things are changing.

    I hate change.

    1

    Change

    I’m telling my own story here.

    I’m a secret writer. My teacher has never read my journal. My mother and father have not read it either. I think my brother, Theo, has read it, but he hasn’t said so. My life is like a dream within a dream, as Edgar Allan Poe writes.

    For one thing my name is Louisiana. My parents were bird-watching through the South when my mother was very pregnant. What were they thinking?

    So I was born in Louisiana.

    My name is Louisiana. Louisa for short.

    And I have a large mass of long curly red hair. Where did that come from?

    My friends have smooth long hair that moves. My hair is long and wildly curly like an out-of-control Brillo pad. Look it up if you don’t know what that is. A so-called friend once said, Too bad about your hair, Louisa.

    I am filled with anguish.

    My younger brother, Theo, tells me most times boys don’t bother saying rude things about hair.

    Theo is strangely understanding, yet direct.

    Tough to be you, Lou, he says with sympathy when I complain to him.

    Theo is a linear thinker, says Jake. Put words to what you are feeling and you can solve it. Like me.

    Theo is only eight but could be seventy.

    My grandmother Boots says the same thing in her own way.

    Theo is old, she says.

    My grandmother’s real name is Lily, but she is called Boots because she loves them. Everyone in her family has always worn boots, her grandmother and grandfather, her aunts and uncles and cousins everywhere. Even the babies wear boots. My favorite uncle, whose name I forget, is called Boots too. He’s a poet who fell in love with cows and is now a farmer.

    My grandmother Boots prefers wellies. She has four pairs in the front closet: red, green, yellow, and black. They are tall and come up to her knees.

    When Uncle Boots visited, it was confusing. We tried to change my grandmother’s name to Boo.

    No, she said.

    What about Wellie?

    Never.

    So now we have more than one Boots.

    Boots knows most everything.

    She knows, for instance, that her son—my father—and his wife—my mother—are dense about some things even though they’re disturbingly intelligent, as she puts it.

    Boots is my hero.

    Our parents have plunked Theo and me on the little island for the long summer, as they always do, while they go off to do their bird research. My father is an ornithologist, and my mother is a photographer. You haven’t seen anyone more excited than my father over the possible sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker in some bug-ridden habitat. Or New Caledonian crows, who sometimes make and use tools to catch grubs. My mother often climbs trees to photograph a bird’s nest made of animal fur, human hair, sticks, small bones, and an every-once-in-a-while treasure such as a gold bead. Sometimes baby birds in a nest squawk at her when she surprises them.

    Theo refers to our parents’ summers as bird bedlam.

    My father, of course, wears boots.

    Theo and I love coming to Deer Island for peace, reading books, taking long walks by the water, swimming, and mostly talking to Jake and Boots. Theo talks all year long about the island as if it is his dream.

    Boots?

    Yes?

    I heard something when my parents were talking.

    Boots nods. She is not shocked that I was eavesdropping. Nothing much shocks Boots.

    They were saying that you and Jake might move to our house when he can’t see well enough to drive.

    Boots laughs. Right out loud. No. This is our home. The place we love. We can walk to almost everyplace we want to be.

    Or, they said, maybe we could move here to help, I say.

    Taking you out of school and all you know? Don’t worry, Louisa. They’re not invited.

    I nod, relieved. I hate change, I say.

    "Well, sometimes change can be exciting. An adventure. Sometimes you find out who you are."

    I don’t think so, I say.

    I know so, says Boots. Trust me. I know everything.

    She puts her arms around me. It’s hard being you, she says.

    "That’s

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