Summary:
on a terrifically rainy day, Ben has a dream in which he and his house float by the momuments of the world, half submerged in flood water. Ben falls asleep while studying for a "landmarks of the world" test, and ends of dreaming about them. At the end of the story, we learn that his friend Margaret has a similar dream during her afternoon nap, and that Ben and Margaret had cameos in each other's dreams.
Review:
This is a good example of fantasy because this story could most likely not happen in real life. However, I also think this is a realistic fiction because people make dream everyday so that the story could happen in real life.
The pictures are done by ink and pen.
Comments on use:
Teach children some information of geography and history.
Train children's creative thinking.
Age appropriateness:
intermediate

I really liked this book for 3 reasons. Ben's Dream is about a boy named Ben who goes home to study for his geography test when he see's a rain storm approaching. As he begins to study and it begins to rain, he falls asleep and dreams about his house floating around the world and seeing all sorts of landmarks. His friend Margaret eventually wakes him up and they realize that they had the same dream as they pedal off to play baseball. The first thing I really like was how the writing and illustration of this book go hand-in-hand. The book starts of with text, then moves through the majority of the book with only using illustrations to tell the story, and then brings back the text for the conclusion of the book. I have never seen a book that did this and really enjoyed the way it flowed perfectly. The next thing I really liked was the way the illustrations were constructed, the illustrator used vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines to construct the pictures while still making everything look and appear as it does in real life. The final thing that I loved about the book was the plot and story line. It focuses around the idea that the boy is so intently studying that when he falls asleep, he dreams about all the things he's studying about. For example, in Ben's dream he floats past The Great Wall of China, Mount Rushmore, Big Ben, The leaning tower of Pisa, and many more iconic landmarks of the world. It was a great concept as well as a little bit of a geography lesson as in one. ( )

I love this book! First of all, the illustration style is incredible because it is very life-like, but the gray scale makes it hazy like a dream. This book is only captioned for about 4 of its pages which leaves the actual dreaming quiet and with plenty of room for children to fill in the silence with their own imagination, thoughts, and questions. In my classroom, I could use this books for weeks of lessons about national monuments around the globe to different nations or imagination and dreams. The big ideas of this book are not morals, but instead ideas of igniting creative interest and sparking geographical curiosities. ( )

Ben and his friend meet in a dream after both drift off while studying world landmarks. ( )

Clever book starts with boy and his friend studying for geography test, shares a dream of famous landmarks, and ends with him meeting his friend again, who had experienced a similar dream.