Appelemando's Dreams

Appelemando lives in a town so dreary that he likes to daydream. But unlike other children, his dreams spill out of his head in bright colors, coloring the drab landscape around him. Furthermore, his young friends accidentally discover that wet objects will hold these color daydreams. However, on a rainy day, his dreams literally paint the town red, and blue, and yellow, and green.Up to this point, the story is exciting and the illustrations, richly shaded in a slight change from Polacco's more typical style, accurately portray both the drab and the bright. But halfway through, the story turns to a lost children motif, and, somewhat predictably, Appelemando's ability to color the sky leads to their rescue. There's a nice message here about having friends who believe in you and the importance of dreaming, but both the narrative and the pictures are a bit too uninspired for someone of Polacco's enormous talent. The dream that rescues the wanderers is bright enough, but not varied enough.... just designs that spell out "Help Us." and more pictures of animals and smallish abstract shapes. A 5 for any other author, but relative to Polacco's other book, this merits only a 4. Take a look at "Casey at the Bat," "Picnic at Mudsock Meadow," "Thunder Cake," the `Babushka' series, and many others to get a truer picture of Polacco's magnificence.

I like this book a lot because the illustrator showed Appelemando's dream very clearly. He also used very colorful pictures in his dreams. The book was pretty funny because his friends kept getting hurt by his dreams. All the people kept getting mad at him because he never did anything good. That is why I would recommend this book to you.

I saw this book displyed on Reading Rainbow, Actress Michael Learned read it, Appelemondo creates good things in his dreams, Just what a little boy would dream of. You can that the character really loves fantasy land's. It was a very nice book.

Patricia Polacco caputres the desire of every child to be accepted for who she/he is regardless of their abilities. Once again, the child with a 'difference'who doesn't seem to fit into the society he/she lives in, is supported in a positive way.

I loved this book. Many times people are judged by what others believe to be right. This book shows that we all have gifts even though people are sometimes blind to them. That is the gift of this book to me, to remember to see the gifts in each person I meet