The Dream Catcher Tour (Paperback)

by Paula Buermele (Author)
Key Phrases: Aunt Helen, Miss Schutze, Upper Peninsula (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Like coffee that has reached the perfect drinking temperature, women are most interesting when they have matured through life's varied challenges and experiences. The Dream Catcher Tour is an intriguing and sensitive tapestry of tales woven into a delightful novel that reflects the beauty and spirit of women. While touring interesting places and enjoying new experiences in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, forty-seven women also travel through the prism of time to re-visit favorite memories and share recollections with each other. These cleverly crafted word images will resonate with women of all ages. Come along on their journey and enjoy the ride.

From the Author
"The fictional women on the bus are women we all know. They are our mothers, sisters, wives, best friends, neighbors, co-workers. They are related to us by birth, marriage, or shared experience. They are the people we depend on to be there with us as we live our way through the days and seasons and events of our lives."- Paula Buermele

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Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Outskirts Press (May 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1432703536
• ISBN-13: 978-1432703530
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #844,522 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Find a comfy spot, a cup of coffee and enjoy!, August 19, 2007

By	Sarah Foster - See all my reviews

The bonds of friendship grow and strengthen as the women travel along on the Dream Catcher Tour. Paula does a wonderful job of describing the places where the women stop on their tour. Having spent some of my youth in Michigan's UP I can picture the places described and taste Jilbert's ice cream.

This book is an "easy read" as you get lost in the lives of the women. The book inspires me to some day take my own "Dream Catcher Tour".

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your "Summer Read" book is here!, June 28, 2007

By	Michelle Dunn "Columnist, author, credit expe... (NH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Paula really captured my attention with this fun book, that is a perfect summer read. Paula's story telling lets you get to know each character and relate to them, keeping you glued to this book. Good, fun read that I would recommend for any woman, going on vacation, sitting at the beach or waiting in a doctor's office. You won't be able to put it down!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Those stories are who we are, June 17, 2007

By	BookReview.com (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This book is as delightful as a china teacup of steaming Earl Grey tea on a crisp, clear Sunday afternoon. Forty-seven older women are taking a bus tour around Michigan's Upper Peninsula. One by one, as if eavesdropping on their thoughts, we come to know some of their stories. Their lives are not particularly dramatic nor do they lead to Joycean epiphanies. This is a journey of small discoveries. For example, one memory is of a girl sitting in a grade school classroom while the teacher drones on about a battle in Greek history. But the kids at their desks are watching out the window as a Vietnam soldier is buried in the cemetery across the street. Another passenger when thinking about working with her daughter on their scrapbooks years earlier says to herself, "How do I balance the ordinary with the need to identify and recognize the extraordinary?" That is exactly what each of these glimpses into women's lives does.

I admit to falling in love with this book with the first mention of Ann Arbor, Escanaba, Copper Harbor, Mackinac Bridge and Iron Mountain. This is Midwest comfortable and a world we don't often see in books. As a kid I visited the places she mentions in the U.P. and despite everything else in the world changing, from their description I know these locations have remained the same. It made me wonder, Who would read this book? My first thought was of older people who because of health or other reasons didn't have the ability to make a final trip like this, a final connection to places, a final connection between people. Then I realized that we are all prisoners of our day-by-day lives. We all need to slow down and talk to each other and exchange our stories. Those stories are who we are.

Paula Buermele slips seamlessly from one story to the next. They are varied and the structure seems as natural as getting on and getting off a bus. Then about three-quarters of the way through there is a sequence where a local guide tells of the 1913 Italian Hall disaster. Hundreds of the seven hundred striking union members and their families attending a Christmas gathering were trampled when someone yelled," fire!" There was no fire. Madeline, a teacher on the bus tour, thinks about what it will take to make this tragedy real in a Social Studies unit for her eighth graders. Then, as she dozes off waiting for the bus, through her dream we experience the emotions she wants her students to feel as she relives the experience as if she were a girl alive at the time. It is a remarkable backstage glimpse into Buermele's storytelling art. Bravo!

The book loses a little momentum at the end, but it may be I just didn't want to come to the last page. As Barb, who has been reminiscing about rainy London in a marriage that ends in divorce, tells us, "I really developed a passion for tea during our stay in that country and I've come to appreciate its ability to settle me down." The stories that make up this book inexplicably also help center us. The author tells us Barb couldn't do anything about happy endings any more than she could turn orange construction cones into candy corn. "But she would have that cup of tea at the very first opportunity."