“Closet of dreams” was kindly sent to me as an Advance Review Copy (ARC) all the way from the USA! A beautiful hardcover book with a lovely cover illustration, reading the book was a bit like entering into a child’s dream.
And the protagonist is indeed oddly named “Child” and his grandma is “Gamma” – hence the title of this series, “The Adventures of Child and Gamma”.
Child is bullied and sprints towards “Kids Park” daily after school to escape the gang of bullies. I found it rather strange that Gamma looked after an African hippo and elephant as well as a Canadian bear, even though it was explained that they were adopted from a circus. Even then, I felt that they should have been liberated from wearing a pink tutu, a baseball cap and a tie and hat respectively, since it all seemed too unnatural.
But I suppose if this book is meant to exist in the mind of a child, then imagining these animals in circus costumes might be somewhat likely. The animals all start talking to humans as well, and even join a baseball match!
I found the dialogue throughout the book a bit forced and slow in pace, like there was too much “telling” and not enough “showing”. Perhaps if it were read aloud by a grandparent to a young child, the pace and numerous explanations in the book might make more sense.
Whilst the book tries to cover important topics of standing up to bullies, and facing your fears (“sometimes, feeling scared comes and goes like a toothache”), and the backstory of a bully, I felt that the overall execution of story-telling was a bit wanting and would not be engaging enough for children above the age of 6 or 7.
6/10 ⭐️
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