Boat of Dreams

Originally published in Brazil, Coelho's enigmatic wordless tale bridges picture book and graphic novel territory as it traces the surprising encounter between an elderly man in a ramshackle seaside cottage and a child in a distant city. After the wiry, mustachioed man discovers a note in a bottle, he's inspired to draw a fantastical flying machine, which resembles half of a sailing ship augmented with a nest of gears. The man sends his drawing back to sea, and the action shifts to the city, where a boy finds it in a letter in front of his home; how it got there from the bottle isn't revealed. After drawing himself (and his cat) into the picture, the boy sails the ship to meet the man in his dreams. Coelho (Books Do Not Have Wings) stages his story in dramatically lit, sharp-edged, and distinctly surreal panels and panoramas; his limited palette of blues and sepias conveys a strong sense of isolation, particularly in the boy's chilly, deserted city. It's a haunting story of inexplicable connections, and Coelho resists spelling out its mysteries, letting readers draw their own conclusions. Ages 7-up. (Jan.)

Copyright 2016 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Gr 1-4--Outside a seaside cottage sitting on stilts, an elderly gent and his avian companion spy a glass bottle floating in the ocean. When the bottle reaches the shore, the man discovers that it contains a blank sheet of paper. The bird encourages him to sketch a picture on the paper, and the man does, creating a fantastical flying ship, replete with ornate fixtures and billowing sails. Stunning stylized sepia artwork on full pages and in panels illustrates this wordless story and depicts a tiny home crammed with cabinets and cupboards and bins and shelves packed with books, pencils, lamps, radios, and drawings. Close-up interior views open to wide-angle outdoor scenes, heightening the tale's mystery. The man's picture eventually finds its way into the hands of a boy whose home in a distant city is reminiscent of the cottage by the sea: filled to the brim with pictures and papers, ship models, and drawing tools. The child adds his face and his cat's to the drawing and tapes it to his headboard before falling asleep. He dreams that he travels on the ship and meets and embraces the man before sailing home. At night, in bed, the man looks at the drawing the boy has returned. When morning breaks, readers are back with the child, who greets the dawn with arms outstretched. Has the man been reunited with the child?

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Rogério Coelho has the gift to transform images into messages, far into near, and near into inside. In his images the colors travel through sepia and blue combinations, the spaces house countless objects, the objects with their magical traits come alive, and the characters reveal themselves as affections. In a trip of discovery, childhood meets old age, and old age meets hope. Colors, shapes, and volumes are unwritten words that the reader's intelligence reconstructs as the poetry of the near and far, the journey of a boat of dreams in order to tie the two ends of life.—Marta Marais de Costa