Head Full of Clouds
by Joanne Schwartz; illus. by Afsaneh Sanei
Primary    Tundra    40 pp.
3/25    9781774881613    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781774881620    $10.99

A contemplative, inviting second-person text and playfully surreal illustrations capture the nature of dreams and the magic of the real world. One morning a child wakes up with “a little leftover piece of a dream floating around” her head but can’t remember the details. The opening illustration reflects this in-between feeling: the bedroom floor is liquid, and the ceiling is alive with fish, ocean plants, and a waxing crescent moon. The girl walks around town, senses heightened, but still her “head is in the clouds.” She takes note of her surroundings: an apple “tastes so good [she] write[s] a poem to it”; she “can almost see” a street musician’s tune “drifting down the street.” Sanei’s mesmerizing illustrations—acrylic gouache and colored pencil, finished digitally—beautifully enhance Schwartz’s unhurried, image-rich narrative with surprising perspectives (e.g., looking up at the protagonist from the bottom of a puddle’s ocean-y depths), a lush color palette, and imaginative interpretation of the text. Repeating visual motifs (fish, the moon, rabbits) help tie the curious reflections together. When the girl finally remembers “a piece of [her] dream,” the double-page spread returns to her bedroom. She’s a small figure in the upper left listening to fish tell secrets and looking out at stars falling from a moonlit night sky that turn into sea stars in the “deep, and dark, and wild, and beautiful” ocean barely contained by her bedroom walls. A hug from a friend helps ground our dreamer, who carries her imaginative reflections with her. This is a fantastic journey to savor and revisit.

From the March/April 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.