Sunday, February 5, 2012

Mandy Reviews: The Dream Theatre by Sarah Ball

Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Blackbirdebooks


Book Summary:

The golden rule is: If you think it, and believe it, it will happen ...

Anything is possible in The Dream Theatre. It's a place where dreams are played out like pictures on the television; a place that can be everything from wonderful to scary to downright weird.

And you don't need to be asleep to explore it.

Jamie Ellis and his best friend Martha make this incredible discovery when Martha's dog Pip leads them into The Dream Theatre then disappears. Desperate to find him, Jamie and Martha search the dream world, visiting places and seeing things they never thought possible. But when they eventually find him they face an even more puzzling problem. What is the strange, unending dream Pip seems to be guarding, and why won't he leave?

The answer means a race against time to help a friend in trouble and Jamie coming face-to-face with his worst nightmare.


Mandy's Review:

From the beginning we're drawn into Jamie's story as he awakens from a nightmare and sees something impossible. Add his friend, Martha, her dog, Pip, and a hidden tunnel and we have the foundation of this story.

The day after Jamie's nightmare, the trio go for a walk to see if they can find where Jamie's fantastic vision could've originated. Pip gets excited and runs ahead ... into the mouth of an obscurely hidden tunnel. Jamie and Martha chase after Pip trying to get him to slow down. The tunnel ends up in an underground room where there is a big ball of light. The ball is what Jamie's uncle calls the Dream Theatre.

The Dream Theatre is a place you can walk into and enter people's dreams through various archways. Once the dreamer wakes up, though, your thrown out of the Dream Theatre into the underground room. It is through these dreams that Jamie and Martha search for Pip.

This is only the beginning of a suspenseful few days for Jamie and Martha. After the first day of searching and not being able to pull Pip out of the Dream Theatre, the two friends go back to the tunnel entrance ... only to find it's been secured by a local agency. Why is the tunnel suddenly a danger? Who are these people, really? What about Pip? Will Jamie and Martha be able to go get him?

With elements of suspense, fantasy and sci-fi, The Dream Theatre is the perfect children's novel for pre-teens on up. This isn't the first novel for Ms. Ball, but it is her first children's novel. Well done! I strongly recommend this novel to those who want something new and interesting to read.

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