Dreambender

Dystopian: Using dreams to control the world

Everyone in the City is assigned a job by the choosers—keeper, catcher, computer. Callie Crawford is a computer. She works with numbers: putting them together, taking them apart. Her work is important, but sometimes she wants more. Jeremy Finn is a dreambender. His job is to adjust people’s dreams. He and others like him quietly remove thoughts of music and art to keep the people in the City from becoming too focused on themselves and their own feelings rather than on the world. They need to keep the world safe from another Warming. But Jeremy thinks music is beautiful, and when he pops into a dream of Callie singing, he becomes fascinated with her. He begins to wonder if there is more to life than being safe. Defying his community and the role they have established for him, he sets off to find her in the real world. Together, they will challenge their world’s expectations. But how far will they go to achieve their own dreams?

“This surprisingly upbeat dystopian tale may remind many readers of Lois Lowry’s The Giver....Kidd (Night on Fire) tells an enjoyable story that features both appealing protagonists and well-presented ideas about the importance of creativity and following one’s dreams.”

Publishers Weekly

“Kidd’s spare prose winds around dialogue and description, creating images for readers as vivid as Jeremy’s dreams.”

School Library Journal