Overview

Illustrated by Anthony Browne, THE DAYDREAMER takes the reader out of reality and into the dream world of 10 year old Peter Fortune. Peter Fortune is a daydreamer. He's a quiet ten year old who can't help himself from dropping out of reality and into the amazing world of his vivid imagination. His daydreams are fantastic and fascinating - only in the bizarre and disturbing world of dreams can he swap bodies with the family cat and his baby cousin, Kenneth, or wipe out his entire family with vanishing cream.

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9780099470717

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A brilliant book - wonderful TES A classic Financial Times Exhilarating - briliant Independent Clear and vivid prose ... Read these aloud to your children and be unsettled by them -- Katie Law Evening Standard 20050214 This is a book that could be read at several levels. The dreams can be taken at face-value, but they also reveal themes that more astute readers might recognise ... A good read Writeaway! 20050330

A brilliant book - wonderful TES A classic Financial Times Exhilarating - briliant Independent Clear and vivid prose ... Read these aloud to your children and be unsettled by them -- Katie Law Evening Standard This is a book that could be read at several levels. The dreams can be taken at face-value, but they also reveal themes that more astute readers might recognise ... A good read Writeaway!

Adults think that Peter Fortune is a difficult child because he sits by himself and stares into space. But, except for resultant absentmindedness, like forgetting his little sister on a bus, Peter's daydreams are usually harmless flights of fancy. The Daydreamer includes seven of these flights and four of them - The Dolls, The Cat, The Baby, and The Grown-Up - are metamorphosis experiences. The Cat is a beautiful story that tells of Peter's spirit climbing into the body of his old house cat, William. While in William's body, Peter experiences life as a cat and fights William's last territorial battle for him. Some of Peter's other experiences are less benign. For example, many children flirt with the idea of making their families disappear, but the way Peter goes about it in Vanishing Cream is rather gruesome. And when Peter verbally defeats the school bully in The Bully, Peter himself acknowledges that his words are unduly harsh. Although McEwan presents Peter as a sweet introvert, Peter proves himself to be far from that. Novelist McEwan's first book for children contains some magical moments but is marred by being often repetitive and occasionally mean-spirited. (Kirkus Reviews)

Ten-year-old Peter is a daydreamer - he can't help it. In fact his imagination is so vivid that it is difficult to discern fact from fantasy. Does Peter actually swap skins with the cat, or make his parents and sister vanish with a tub of vanishing cream, or does he just dream these extraordinary escapades? At once disturbing and gripping, this is a remarkable first collection of stories for children from a superb writer known for his adult books. (10 yrs +) (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Ian McEwan is a critically acclaimed author of short stories and novels for adults, as well as a selection of books for children. His first published work, a collection of short stories, 'First Love, Last Rites', won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award, The Cement Garden, Enduring Love, Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize and his most recent novel, Atonement. He lives in Oxford.

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