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Overview
“It is like nothing else I’ve ever read. The characters are so real, you’ll feel like you know exactly what they look like and how their voices sound and what they would say or do in any given situation. More than that, you’ll want to hang out with them. Then the world is so amazing and unique. You will want to go there. You will want to walk into ‘the Place.’ And you will want to sleep in a dream opera.”—Stephenie Meyer, The Twilight Saga
Laura comes from a world similar to our own except for one difference: It is next to the Place, an unfathomable land that fosters dreams of every kind and is inaccessible to all but a select few, the dreamhunters. These are individuals with the ability to catch larger-than-life dreams and relay them to audiences in the magnificent dream palace. People travel from all around to experience the benefits of the hunters’ unique visions.
Now, fifteen-year-old Laura and her cousin Rose, daughters of dreamhunters, are old enough to find out if they qualify to enter the Place. But nothing can prepare them for what they are about to discover. In the midst of a fascinating landscape, Laura’s dreamy childhood is ending, and a nightmare is beginning.
Dreamhunter is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Synopsis
Beauty and danger. Politics and intrigue. Fans of Tamora Pierce and Suzanne Collins will revel in this layered and satisfying fantasy.
Publishers Weekly
Knox's (The Vintner's Luck, for adults) debut for YA readers, the first in the Dreamhunter Duet, recalls Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's sci-fi masterpiece Roadside Picnic. Both tell of a mysterious geographic region (here called "the Place") with unusual powers and properties, and of the societal caste made up of those designated to explore it. The Place is where dreams originate; dreamhunters enter it, capture dreams in their minds, then return to "perform" them for the masses at the Rainbow Opera palace. The novel centers on 15-year-old Laura Hame, whose father Tziga is the legendary dreamhunter who discovered the Place as a young man. Laura is about to have her "Try," a coming-of-age ritual which will test her sensitivity to dreams. She succeeds and, a few days later, her father vanishes. Laura ventures into the Place to find him, but instead receives a letter from him, confiding in her the essence of the Place and saddling her with a terrible mission-to clear up a mess of his own making. Knox's fascinating story imagines the intersection of a haunting dream-world with a gritty real world. A Regulatory Body oversees dreamhunters as if they were mundane laborers, maps point out the exact spots in the Place where certain dreams reside, and an industry emerges to sell eager customers the exact dreams they seek. And what Laura learns about how the government really uses dreams (especially in prison reform) makes for biting commentary. This fully imagined world will surely lure readers back for multiple readings. Ages 12-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
As the daughters of Dreamhunters, 15-year-old Laura and her cousin Rose wonder whether they too have that very special gift: the ability to catch larger-than-life dreams like butterflies and relay them to audiences in the Rainbow Opera. But when they go to test their powers, the two girls discover not a wondrous opportunity but a horrifying secret. Then, suddenly, Laura's father disappears, and the girls' dreams of dream-hunting begin cascading towards nightmare. An enthralling, original fantasy.Publishers Weekly
Knox's (The Vintner's Luck, for adults) debut for YA readers, the first in the Dreamhunter Duet, recalls Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's sci-fi masterpiece Roadside Picnic. Both tell of a mysterious geographic region (here called "the Place") with unusual powers and properties, and of the societal caste made up of those designated to explore it. The Place is where dreams originate; dreamhunters enter it, capture dreams in their minds, then return to "perform" them for the masses at the Rainbow Opera palace. The novel centers on 15-year-old Laura Hame, whose father Tziga is the legendary dreamhunter who discovered the Place as a young man. Laura is about to have her "Try," a coming-of-age ritual which will test her sensitivity to dreams. She succeeds and, a few days later, her father vanishes. Laura ventures into the Place to find him, but instead receives a letter from him, confiding in her the essence of the Place and saddling her with a terrible mission-to clear up a mess of his own making. Knox's fascinating story imagines the intersection of a haunting dream-world with a gritty real world. A Regulatory Body oversees dreamhunters as if they were mundane laborers, maps point out the exact spots in the Place where certain dreams reside, and an industry emerges to sell eager customers the exact dreams they seek. And what Laura learns about how the government really uses dreams (especially in prison reform) makes for biting commentary. This fully imagined world will surely lure readers back for multiple readings. Ages 12-up. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Children's Literature
In this stunning novel, the New Zealand writer's first novel for young adults, Knox establishes herself as one of the most mesmerizing voices writing for young readers today. Cousins Laura and Rose are awaiting the moment when they will be of age to make their life-defining "Try" to enter "the Place" to see if they have the rare gift to cross over the boundary from our world into the barren, dusty landscape of the hidden territory of dreams. There they could become licensed dreamhunters who capture dreams that they can share with others in elaborately staged performances in sumptuous dream palaces. Knox's creation of the history, geography, and magical dimension of Southland is absolutely convincing in every carefully constructed detail. The book reads like a richly realized historical novel, rather than a fantasy: maybe there really is somewhere on Earth "a whole territory hidden in a fold in a map." The shifting dynamics of the relationship between Rose and Laura, as each finds her way to a different destiny, are brilliantly observed in every psychological nuance; we know them as well as we know the members of our own family. The plot reveals a dark scheme of political intrigue, where the powers of the dreamhunters can be abused in the service of great evil, and builds to a shattering conclusion. The first of a projected "Dreamhunter Duet," this is a haunting and powerful book that will be long remembered. 2005, Farrar Straus and Giroux, Ages 12 up.—Claudia Mills, Ph.D.