Customer Reviews

Awake and Dreaming (Novel)

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Awake and Dreaming is a book that helps us understand just how much we should be thankful for. It also helps us see that no matter how bad our situation, there is always someone in a worse predicament.
The story is about a girl named Theo. She and her mom live in Vancouver, Canada. It is safe to say that they are poor. Theo's life was very hard and she was going through a lot. So her mother decided that she needed to go stay with some relatives for the time being.
While aboard the ferry that Theo is taking to her aunt's house, Theo falls asleep and the real action begins. Theo goes into a deep sleep. She wakes up to find herself in a big comfortable bed. In a big house with a wonderful family. Theo
is confused at first,but eventually she grows accustom to her new family. She has everything that she ever wanted. Then all of a sudden she is awken by a strong gust of wind and her dream family is gone. She knows that she cant live without them so she goes in search of them and is amazed at what she finds.
If you like imaginitive books, then you'll love Awake and Dreaming!

This book is somewhere between realistic fiction and fantasy. Though it deals with very real issues, it also deals with reality, and whether consciousness is a dream, and dreams are reality, and whether the two are so dependent upon one another that it is impossible to be only one. That we are all Awake and Dreaming.
The person at the center of the story is Theo, who is being raised by a single mother who is much like a child herself. Clean clothes and good food are not things Theo knows much about.
The setting is British Columbia, Canada, not an often written about place, and the book itself is just beautiful.

Satisfyingly good book with an exceptional plot with quite the interesting twist. I wondered how Ms Pearson was going to explain Theo's "other" reality, and she did it in a creative and convincing fashion. The characters are all well drawn, and Theo's infantile mother, Rae, exceptionally so. I'm 50 years old and I loved it.

I read this book for an English project and to be honest I didn't have very high expectations. I'm a bit of a picky reader and I'm not usually super impressed by the books we do in class, but Awake and Dreaming blew me away. It was beautifully written, giving you a mental picture that was almost as wonderful as the overall story. The beginning was confusing, I felt that the prologue had nothing to do with the Theo's story and it muddled me until about half way through. At a certain point it all connected and you were left in slight awe at the cleverness behind it. Theo's home life was heartbreaking, her thoughts and dreams even more so. She had a way of dancing across the pages, bringing the story to life in a way that gave it the wonder of a truly good read. She finds joy in her dreams and struggles with her reality until she learns that reality and dreams aren't as far apart as she might think. She thrives in her perfectly imperfect tale of finding true perfection.

It gave me a lot of things to think about, a lot of things to be thankful for, as it would to any reader. She didn't have any friends and she felt her mother didn't love her, didn't want her. Speaking from a person who has hilarious friends and loving parents I found this to be the most heartbreaking of all and it showed me how fortunate I truly am. At the end of the book Theo has a moment I'm sure we all have experienced and it's the moment when everything feels just right and seems to have that warm glow. The feeling of being so happy you may burst. Seeing the small things that make her happy will bring tears to your eyes but reading about her happiness will make you smile.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves to read and anyone who has every wished that something, anything or everything about their life was different because truly, this book was amazing.

Though I do love reading, I haven't read a substantial amount of books. However, even though I first read this in Grade 6 (I'm 21 now), this has remained in my memory as probably the most beautiful book I've ever read. I re-read it I think in Grade 8, and fell in love with it again.
Even though it was written for Grades 4-7, it's a pretty mature book, not in the language sense, but what Theo goes through in the book. I highly recommend this book.

This book is great, it really puts in perspective of how life could be for some people and how life is different for others. I read it when I was 8 or 9 and I read all of her series and I re-read them many times. Now as an adult, I take care of kids and they love her as an author as much as I do..
Kit Pearson is a Canadian author, and she isn't recognized as much in the states, but she deserves it!

Awake and Dreaming is a book that helps us understand just how much we should be thankful for. It also helps us see that no matter how bad our situation, there is always someone in a worse predicament.
The story is about a girl named Theo. She and her mom live in Vancouver, Canada. It is safe to say that they are poor. Theo's life was very hard and she was going through a lot. So her mother decided that she needed to go stay with some relatives for the time being.
While aboard the ferry that Theo is taking to her aunt's house, Theo falls asleep and the real action begins. Theo goes into a deep sleep. She wakes up to find herself in a big comfortable bed. In a big house with a wonderful family. Theo
is confused at first,but eventually she grows accustom to her new family. She has everything that she ever wanted. Then all of a sudden she is awken by a strong gust of wind and her dream family is gone. She knows that she cant live without them so she goes in search of them and is amazed at what she finds.
If you like imaginitive books, then you'll love Awake and Dreaming!

Awake and Dreaming is a book that helps us understand just how much we should be thankful for. It also helps us see that no matter how bad our situation, there is always someone in a worse predicament.
The story is about a girl named Theo. She and her mom live in Vancouver, Canada. It is safe to say that they are poor. Theo's life was very hard and she was going through a lot. So her mother decided that she needed to go stay with some relatives for the time being.
While aboard the ferry that Theo is taking to her aunt's house, Theo falls asleep and the real action begins. Theo goes into a deep sleep. She wakes up to find herself in a big comfortable bed. In a big house with a wonderful family. Theo
is confused at first,but eventually she grows accustom to her new family. She has everything that she ever wanted. Then all of a sudden she is awken by a strong gust of wind and her dream family is gone. She knows that she cant live without them so she goes in search of them and is amazed at what she finds.
If you like imaginitive books, then you'll love Awake and Dreaming!

I recommend this book. I read it for a book report. It is very interesting. It teaches people what life is like for some in poverty. It also has the right amount of fantasy to go along with the realistic side of the story. It was a great read. Kit Person has outdone herself.

Kids get to go on some fun field trips these days, and a couple of years ago I decided to tag along and chaperone when my son's grade 7 class was going to visit Ross Bay Cemetery located here in Victoria. It all had to do with this book they had read in class, whose plot involved the cemetery, a house across the street from it, and other nearby landmarks that I knew of.

Theodora and her mother live in Vancouver in utter poverty - if you can call it living. There's never enough to eat, and her shoes are too small and falling apart. Theo's mother is never home, either working or out with a boyfriend, and leaves the young lady on her own far too often. It's enough to have Theo taken away and made a ward of the court, but the secret is very well kept. Theo changes schools often so that nobody in a position to do anything about the situation can help. Sometimes she's lucky and the schools have meal programs, sometimes she isn't. Then she must try to learn while her body devours itself from the inside out.

Things suddenly change when Theo's mother runs into an old friend and the two begin a relationship. Naturally there isn't any room for Theo who wants a kid hanging out when they are trying to party anyhow?! So Theo is left on her own, more and more, until the day her Mother decides to move in with this new guy. The invitation didn't extend to Theo, of course, so she is unloaded on an Aunt in Victoria who she hasn't seen in years. The deal is that Theo's mom will send money, and that it won't be for long, only until she talks the boyfriend into accepting Theo.

Theo has dreamed of belonging to a real family for so long that it has become a familiar and easy dream to fall into. There will be four children, two older and two younger, so that Theo can be in the middle. Then somehow the oddest thing happens - Theo is very mysteriously adopted into her dream family. The Kaldor's are filled with love and warmth, and for the first time in her life, Theo is not only happy, but well dressed and fully fed. She even relaxes enough to build friendships with her new siblings.

Tragically, something goes horribly, horribly wrong and Theo slowly fades from the life she has found. She finds herself back with her mother, traveling on the ferry to Victoria. The Kaldor's couldn't have been a dream, it was far too real to Theo, and she is filled with anguish at the loss. How could this have happened to her?

What really hits home is the reality involved here. Aside from the fantasy elements, this book holds some cold hard truths that children face today. It is well deserving of winning The Canada Council for the Arts Governor General's Literary Awards. This is a ghost story with some real substance.

Review Originally Posted at LinearReflections.com