Somewhere you can dream by Janeen Brian & Hilary Jean Tapper

Using a range of media, Tapper’s illustrations reflect watercolour, gouache, pen and ink, pencil and crayon, all blended to make the almost dreamlike atmosphere which support the text of Somewhere you can dream. These wonderful pages are filled with brush strokes that seem deceptively hurried, showing a sky full of moving, reshaping clouds and patches of blue, changing as we move from one page to the next. The children flying kites on the cover introduces readers to a world close to their own, a time of playfulness and exploration, a time of dreams.

On each double page the rhyming lines take the readers on a journey. We are taken to secret nooks, hideaways, shady trees, rocky bays, cubbies, tree tops, places between places where the clouds move quickly. Janeen Brian uses evocative words such as leafy, shady, cosy, sheltered and snuggling, all soft, gentle words which add to the comforting, soothing and calm atmosphere echoed by the illustrations. 

‘Wriggling into tiny spaces so you‘re hardly there’, one of my favourite lines, brings forth the image of a child making themselves as small as possible, finding a place to dream, and the illustrations on those pages are just as arresting. One page has a quiet place in the house, a child squeezed into a chair, reading, another sitting quietly on the floor beside the chair, while another climbs into the window seat, the next page showing a child’s face peering into a garden, its colours muted by the moon. The spare words are again reflected in the images presented.

Many of the places we are taken on our journey, are around the home, and later Janeen Brian takes us outside, to rolling hills and deep valleys, a place to shout. And she brings us back into the known, as she looks for a smaller spot, a place where she can sit and dream and think.

This wonderful evocation of quiet places, of wild places, of being at home and outside, offers a place to dream, of being alone, a place to sit and think.

The book evokes the positives of being alone, as well as the comfort of being with a group, extolling the idea of dreaming, of being able to be somewhere quiet and evocative, a place of solitude and thought. These themes are revealed in both text and word, and young readers will love reading it aloud, looking at the detail offered in the illustrations. They will offer their places of solitude, places where they can be quiet and reflective. 

A story that wraps its arms around the reader, making them feel comforted both in quiet times alone, and being with friends for active romps.  

Themes: Dreams, Solitude, Adventure, Family, Home.

Fran Knight