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PICTURE BOOKS
Miyakoshi, Akiko

I Dream of a Journey

40 pp. | Kids Can | March, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-5253-0478-1 $16.99
(2) K-3 Translated by Cathy Hirano. An innkeeping badger, dapper in his bow tie and vest, invites the reader to admire his hotel ("small but cozy. It's my pride and joy") and to share his appreciation of the guests who have traveled from afar to stay there. But as much as the innkeeper loves his work, his dreams are full of the journey he will one day take to see the friends he's made among his visitors and explore the world for himself. Adult readers may feel a sense of melancholy, but the closing line--"I bet everyone will be surprised"--speaks directly to children who may also dream of possibilities for their own futures. Miyakoshi (The Storm, rev. 5/16; The Way Home in the Night, rev. 7/17) uses textured layers of black and white to illustrate the innkeeper's day-to-day life. Her use of light and shadow is particularly successful; on one spread sunlight streams in through the hotel's dining room windows, illuminating the innkeeper and his guests, so that the small scene is both intimate and full of wonder. When the innkeeper talks about his dreams, Miyakoshi shifts to color to illustrate his imaginings. Small anthropomorphized mammals sit around a table loaded with food, their faces lit by sunlight, surrounded by warm blue shadows. From the endpapers, which recall a sunrise or sunset seen from an airplane window, to the final view of the hotel, when the reader looks down as if flying off with a flock of birds, this is a beautiful picture book about hope for the future.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2020

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