What Wonders Do You See… When You Dream?
Star Rating: 4.5 / 5
What Wonders Do You See...When You Dream? by Justine Avery is a great story on how to get your kids to bed and the wonders they might experience while asleep. Surprisingly, the kids in the book are very excited to be getting ready for bed and show it by rushing to put their toys away, hurrying into the bathroom to brush their teeth, getting their pajamas on and taking the time to stretch to relax. What comes next is strange—the kids say that bedtime is fun! They can’t wait to get tucked in and start relaxing their bodies to be able to fall asleep. Anything that might be keeping them from falling asleep is told to stop! Deep breaths are taken again and again until the kids are finally able to drift off to sleep and experience the wonders of their dreams. When you are able to pay attention to what your mind is thinking, which can be hard to do during the day when you are busy and distracted, you can be surprised at what you will see. In your dreams, you can do or be anything you want to. Dreaming is very similar to make-believe and pretend play during the day, except it comes from your mind while you’re resting. Avery’s account of bedtime should sink into every child’s mind who reads this and in a perfect world, make the bedtime routine much easier for parents!
I really liked this book, and my kids loved it as well. They are at ages where they like to tell me about what they dream about from the night before, so after reading What Wonders Do You See…, they have a better idea of how to explain their dreams and understand the power of their dreams to help spark their imagination during the day. The pictures in the book are beautiful, full of soothing watercolors that are sure to put the children and adults who read the book in a calm mood before getting some much-needed rest. The story is in rhyme style, which makes it interesting and somewhat predictable for children as, depending on their age, they might be able to predict the next word to complete the sentence and idea in the story portrayed on the page. Even as adults, we should try to remember that in our dreams we don’t have to worry about reality or what is expected of us on a daily basis. I recommend this book for audiences of all ages to enjoy.