Gossamer By: Lois Lowry

The first thing I want to tell you is that I have included a cool link with this post. If you click on the title it will take you to NPR.org. There is a blurb about the book and you can hear Lois Lowry read a passage from the book. I didn't want to risk anyone missing it. I thought it was kind of cool. Anyway.........

This is Lois Lowry's newest novel. It was published in 2006. The premise of the story is that there are magical, fairy like creatures, which "bestow" dreams upon humans and animals while they sleep. These are good beings who use the memories stored in items around the house (pictures, old sweaters, keep sakes, etc...) to give good dreams to people while they are sleeping. The purpose of the dreams is to help the humans who have them to gain some strength and happiness from them so that they may effectively deal with the problems they face from day to day. There are also evil counterparts who bestow nightmares but, you'll have to read the book to find out more about them.

This novel is based in the modern world and is reality based. The humans to which the main characters (the Dream Givers) are assigned are ordinary people. There is an elderly woman, her dog, and an angry foster child. We get to meet the boy's mother as well. The difficulties faced by these humans are normal, ordinary problems. All of this "ordinariness" serves to make the fantasy world of the Dream Givers more believable.

I hope I am not being to cryptic but, I really do not want to give anything away. If you have enjoyed any of Lois Lowry's other work then you must read Gossamer.

Once again she has taken the reader by the hand and gently revealed to us the reality that there is evil in the world. However, as with her other stories we are also reminded that humans are basically good and that there are heroes all around us if we can just "See Beyond" ourselves and remember that we are all in this world together.

I will leave you with one quote from the book that I think summarizes a lot about Lois Lowry and her work as a whole. It is a statement made by the main character in the story: " And you know what..... Sad parts are important. If I ever get to train a new young dream giver, that's one of the things I'll teach: that you must include the sad parts, because they are part of the story, and they have to be part of the dreams."(pg. 96)