Based on the poem ‘Dream Variation’ by Langston Hughes, the story is an illustrated and simplified version of the message it contains.

The book shows a young black child and their family in the US during segregation. The poem itself talks about the dream of African-Americans for acceptance and freedom, and this picture book does a perfect job at relaying this to children.

The illustrations are clear discussion pieces, with the child’s family mirrored by a white family who seem much more colourful, privileged and accepted. However, the child and their family are still happy.

They are not presented as lonely or downtrodden, which would be easy for the illustrator to do, and is the usual mis-step in some picture books of this kind. The child has plenty of happiness from their loving family, from their dreams, and their imagination. The key aspect is that the book vocalises those dreams into needing acceptance and reality; the power is beyond the narrator and is placed into the hands of the reader.