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Summary
Summary
There is a bandit who comes in the night. He does not want pretty silver earrings or dangly gold necklaces, not diamonds or rubies.
What does he want?
Listen, I will tell you.
He wants dreams.
He is supposed to take only nightmares--the dreams of monsters and phantoms--but he's grown scared. He's been taking the good dreams instead.
But one night he steals from the wrong girl.
Susana is clever. She is wily. She is brave.
And she wants her dream back.
Author Notes
Sid Fleischman was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 16, 1920 but grew up in San Diego, California. He loved all things magical and toured professionally as a magician until the beginning of World War II. During the war, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and afterwards, he graduated from San Diego State University in 1949.
After graduation, he worked as a reporter with the San Diego Daily Journal. After the paper folded in 1950, he started writing fiction. He tried his hand at children's books because his own children often wondered what their father did. To show them how he created stories, he wrote them a book. He wrote more than 50 fiction and nonfiction works during his lifetime including The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life; Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini; The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West; The Thirteenth Floor; and The Ghost in the Noonday Sun. His book, The Whipping Boy, won the Newberry Award in 1987. He is the father of Newbery Medal winning writer and poet Paul Fleischman; they are the only father and son to receive Newbery awards.
He also wrote screenplays including Lafayette Escadrille, Blood Alley, and The Whipping Boy. He died from cancer on March 17, 2010 at the age of 90.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The duo behind the 1987 Newbery winner, The Whipping Boy, reunites for this whimsical tale that mixes fantasy and reality to heal a broken friendship. Susana fights with her best friend just before Consuelo Louisa moves to Guadalajara. Lonely and sad, Susana dreams of a happy reunion, but her reverie is interrupted when the Dream Stealer-charged with rounding up monsters and demons from nightmares so people can sleep-makes off with the blissful scene. Determined to get her dream back, clever Susana traps the Dream Stealer and forces him to fly her to the castle where the botherations he's lassoed from dreams are kept under lock and key. Fleischman's rich prose and understated humor make for easy reading; the loss of a friend, a magical journey to set things right and an empowered heroine are emotionally right on target for the audience. Sis's full-page b&w drawings often render Susana incongruously passive, but his depictions of the rest of Fleischman's oddball cast are livelier and the overall effect is a handsome package. Ages 9-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) "Muchachos and muchachas, boys and girls...do you believe in marvels?" An omniscient narrator relates the story of eight-year-old Susana Cristobal's encounters with the Dream Stealer -- a lasso-wielding, birdlike creature who captures nightmares. As the Dream Stealer grows weary (and fearful) of his mission, he starts collecting happy dreams, including one that Susana is having about her best friend, Consuelo Louisa, who moved away. Susana sets a trap for the Dream Stealer, then forces him to take her to his castle, where she must sift through thousands of stored dreams to find her own. Through fluid prose and vivid, often weird imagery, Fleischman maintains the story's dreamlike state. The tale, abstract at times, is well served by Sis's textured black-and-white illustrations. Without being too literal in their interpretations, the pictures give readers a push toward visualizing the strange creatures and settings. Imaginations will run wild with the idea of tracking down the physical manifestations of one's subconscious. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Fleischman and Sís, whose previous collaborations include The Whipping Boy (1986), a Newbery Medal winner, join forces again in this fanciful, original tale drawn from Mexican lore. A dream-stealing creature used to lasso sleepers' nightmares, but he's burned out on monster wrangling and has begun to steal more pleasant images instead. His latest target is a young girl, Susana, who is heartsick after her best friend, Consuelo Louisa, moves away. Susana is delighted when she dreams of a happy horseback-riding excursion with her friend, but she wakes abruptly. Why did the dream end? Susana brings her worries to her grandmother, who tells her that the Dream Stealer is the likely cause. Susana cleverly traps the beast and convinces him to bring her to his castle, where she can retrieve the rest of her dream. While this tale lacks the solid framework and rich depth of some of Fleischman's previous winners, the range of imaginative inventions, from the cast of dream-conjured creatures to the Dream Stealer's firefly storage system, will delight children, as will the narrator's expertly modulated storyteller's cadence. Sís' black-and-white illustrations include inventive design elements that reinforce the sense of real and imagined worlds overlapping.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2009 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-Basing a story on a carved Mexican figure, Fleischman weaves a short tale around a Dream Stealer, Zumpango, who perches outside windows waiting to snitch nightmares from sleeping children. Scared by some of the critters he has lassoed, he starts taking happy dreams. But he hasn't reckoned with Susana, who wants back her interrupted dream of a happy reunion with a friend with whom she has had a fight. She tricks Zumpango into flying her to his lair to take back the dream. There she faces down and outfoxes the nightmare creatures (some borrowed from folktales) and agrees to be Zumpango's new friend if he will leave her good dreams alone. When she is returned home, a phone call from her old friend provides a cheerful end. Sis's ink drawings feature just the right mix of surreal, funny, scary, and reassuring images (but sharp readers will note that while the text has the Dream Stealer escaping an ogre feet first through a narrow window, the illustration shows him stuck head first). Set within a loving Spanish family, the tale twinkles with Fleischman's signature crisp language and laugh-out-loud wordplay. All in all, it's a quick, unique read that's sure to give young chapter-book readers shivers, laughs, and satisfaction.-Susan Hepler, formerly at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
So slender and slight it feels light enough to float from your hands, Fleischman and S"s's latest chapter-book collaboration supplements their previous Newbery-winning pairing, The Whipping Boy (1987). Lonely little Susana desperately misses her old best friend, who recently moved away from their small Mexican town. Worse still, when she has a dream that seems to show her friend in danger, Susana finds it immediately stolen by the magical, rude, chili-chomping Dream Stealer. Incensed, Susana insists on being reunited with her dream. So begins a journey to the Dream Stealer's castle, as well as a run-in with a couple of nightmarish characters who have vowed revenge against their colorful captor. The author breathes life into this Mexican-flavored world with a storytelling manner that's teasing and intriguing by turns. This good-natured whimsy is complemented beautifully by the one-of-a-kind pen-and-ink drawings. Sweet and silly, consider this slim bedtime fare that lingers long after the tale is told. (Fantasy. 6-11) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Dream Stealer Chapter One Muchachos and muchachas, boys and girls, do you know what happened to the fearless little girl who lives in the pink stucco house behind the plaza? Fearless, but lonely. Lonely, but plucky. Do you believe in marvels? After a long, hot day, the sun dropped behind a prickly clump of cactus without scratching itself. Then a warm night fell over the Mexican town, soft as velvet, with stars flashing like fireflies. Bedroom windows were flung open to the evening air. Soon it would be time for Susana to go to bed. Yes, that was her name. Susana. With one n. Eight years old. Unknown to her, Susana had a night visitor. Outside, a great bird with big feet was flying in as silently as an owl. It circled the pink house. After a long journey, the strange creature came to rest on a limb of the old pepper tree in the patio of Susana's house. A bird, did I say? Yes and no. Its wings and feathers flashed orange and red polka dots like bloodshot eyes--and green spots and purple ones, too. You'd think the night visitor had the allover measles. Now, think of teeth as sharp as broken crockery. And a full moon of a face, with cunning eyes protruding like a frog's. An ogre? A monster? What could it be, hanging in the pepper tree like a great piñata? I'll tell you. Be patient. The Dream Stealer . Copyright © by Sid Fleischman . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Dream Stealer by Sid Fleischman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
