FRANKLIN'S BIG DREAMS

Just before Franklin goes to sleep each night in this story, an engineer barges in and builds railroad tracks, canals and runways straight through his bedroom. Giant, glowing trains, ships and planes appear, carrying familiar people (his mailman, his dentist, his mom's boss) to an unknown destination. Young readers will watch along with Franklin, dumbstruck, as the rumbling machinery plows through his walls and into the night. Illustrations with powerful perspectives capture the jarring otherworldliness of dreams. Readers face the broad side of a ship towering three stories high; they cower beneath a jet's roaring belly. Dark blues and purples plunge readers into the murkiness of night, where nothing is quite clear, and clouds both frame and obscure portions of each page. While action-packed and full of vivid language, the book's ambiguity leaves readers feeling frustrated and fuzzy. When Franklin recognizes his own tousled head at the back of the rows of midnight express passengers, he suddenly "figure[s] out what's going on." Many readers never will. After so many weird, woozy nights, it is hard to piece together Franklin's mind-blowing revelation. (Picture book. 4-8)