The Dreamer

by Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis Pura Belpre Award Book The Dreamer is a work of fiction based on the childhood of poet Pablo Neruda. The book opens with young Neftali Reyes at home in bed, daydreaming and wishing he could be outside but settles for having his sister describe what she sees through the window. Neftali’s mother died when he was only two months old and his father is overbearing and cruel. When his father finds him out of bed, he admonishes him saying, “Do you want to be a skinny weakling forever and amount to nothing?…Your mother was the same, scribbling on bits of paper, her mind always in another world.”  Neftali’s father wants him to be a strong boy and to study hard so that he can be a doctor some day, but Neftali has no desire for any of that and is intrigued by words and the beauty of the world around him. Neftali loves exploring and collecting his findings, like rocks, pinecones, feathers, or anything that he finds interesting and he writes interesting words and ideas in a notebook that he hides from his father who has no patience or tolerance for such things. As Neftali grows older, he discovers his voice in his writing and learns that it will take courage for him to write, in part, because he risks further alienation from his father. He also witnesses firsthand the danger of taking an unpopular political stance.  In order to save his father "the humiliation of having a son who was a poet", Neftali created his new name, Pablo Neruda. The rest, as they say, is history. Pablo Neruda followed his dreams and his essays and poems were published and read all over the world. Literary qualities – The author uses personification throughout the book as a way of connecting Neftali to the world around him, such as when Neftali explored the forest and “came upon a towering pine in a small clearing. He looked up and wondered what it had seen from its branches. Did it hide all the secrets of the forest within its dark nooks? Did it know, too, what Neftali would become?” (p. 107). Precise vocabulary – some examples, “He scoured the ground…” (p. 107), “The wind whipped their hair.” (p. 159). “ … glancing up to avoid the scattered laundry of autumn leaves on the bank.” (p. 241) Ryan, P. M. and Sis, P. (2010). The Dreamer. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.