A truly lovely little book! There are 3 story lines going at once but the best is about the creatures who help gather thoughts to help us dream. I have heard from others who have read other Lois Lowry books, like "The Giver," that "Gossamer" is very different. I hope she writes more like this one. Would be a great read-aloud for upper elementary/jr. high crowd. ( )

Dream-givers fighting nightmares, and a hopeful story about recovering from abuse and loneliness. ( )

A community of "dream-givers" gathers human memories, thoughts and feelings to "bestow" these elements as dreams into sleeping humans. As usual, Lowry's prose is spare, spooky and evocative, almost a dream state itself. A junior bestower has to learn the trade, and that's the tension in this slim but effective story. When a little boy is sent to the home of an elderly woman, the young dream-giver becomes too entangled in his trauma. In some ways, it's less of a children's book than an adult fairy tale. In one passage, a young male dream giver attends a woman who "lit one cigarette from the end of the previous one," and lives in a house that could be featured on Hoarders. In some ways, the tone reminded me of Neil Gaiman's [b:The Ocean at the End of the Lane|15783514|The Ocean at the End of the Lane|Neil Gaiman|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1351914778s/15783514.jpg|21500681]: a similar sense of adult menace and complexity, but from a very measured and skilled story teller's hand. One of my favorite Lowrys! ( )

A set of stories for young to older grades in elementary school/ middle school. Each story has a moral-getting along with each other, learning not to be afraid of others (xenophobia). The handbook gives sample lessons for activities that a teacher can do with their students-talking about themes in the story,the morals. I would use this book in explaining (to first and second graders) morals of stories and have these folktales to show how children can combat some of the presented concepts in real life. ( )

Through touching, they gather material: memories, colors, words once spoken, hints of scents and the tiniest fragments of forgotten sound. They collect pieces of the past, of long ago and yesterday. They combine these things carefully, creating dreams. Then they insert the dreams as the humans (and sometimes animals, for occasionally they give dreams to pets, as well) sleep.


Littlest is a young dream giver, learning the ropes from her teacher. Each dream giver is assigned a home to travel to each night. They touch things around the house and then bestow dreams on the occupants. There are also Sinisteeds, they represent the "dark side" and inflict nightmares instead of bestowing dreams like the dream givers.

I enjoyed this story. It was different from what I tend to read. Lois Lowry is a great author and after reading the Giver quartet, I decided to try some of her other books. I found this book in my elementary school library. However, it does have some dark themes and may be best suited to 5th through 8th graders. The Sinisteeeds are scary and sometimes travel in hordes, bringing nightmares. The young boy in this story has suffered from child abuse and is very angry. The old woman is taking care of him temporarily while his mom tries to get her life together. The boy's thoughts are described and include some nasty thoughts about the dog. Made me nervous for a bit because I am really sensitive to animals suffering. But thoughts are not actions.

The book had a dream-like quality about it. The story does has a positive ending and I ending up liking and sympathizing with most of the characters.

Recommended to:
5th - 8th graders and above. Anyone who enjoys Lois Lowry and stories about fantasy and dreams. ( )