#591 of 1001 · March 14, 2022

Do you fear for the future? It’s hard not to worry when confronted with humanity’s ongoing voracious consumption and the vast quantities of ensuing waste. Chris Van Allsburg’s Just a Dream hooks into these sobering concepts, to be sure, but also provides the hopeful blueprint for a solution. Young Walter demonstrates little care for the environment as he tosses empty bags to the ground and takes out the garbage without sorting it. Though he blissfully imagines that the future will hold all sorts of conveniences and technological marvels, a prophetic dream soon warns otherwise. His bed travels from one Kafkaesque nightmare scenario to another: a neighborhood buried in mountains of refuse, a forest cut down to produce toothpicks, a colossal factory producing medicine for the very symptoms caused by its own pollution, a luxury hotel marring the natural beauty of Mount Everest, fisherman reduced to scrounging for small fry, a snarled highway with an endless traffic jam, the Grand Canyon obscured by smog, birds flying for days in search of their natural habitat. When he awakens, Walter resolves to become a steward of the earth, picking up his trash, sorting his family’s garbage, and purchasing a tree to plant for his birthday present. His next dream is far more pleasant: a vision of a low-technology future in which his tree and another planted by his neighbor have grown to a towering size. Van Allsburg’s moral, as timely as ever, benefits from clear writing and engrossingly cinematic renditions of the apocalyptic tableaux. #dream #dreams #nightmare #future #pollution #environment #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks