Dream Boats
Written by Dan Bar-el.
Illustrated by Kirsti Anne Wakelin.
Simply Read Books, 2013.
age 4-8
Read a review  – Quill & Quire Magazine (starred review) >>
Read a review – Kirkus Reviews >>

Published May 2013
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ABOUT THE BOOK

Where do children go when they close their eyes to sleep?

They step onto their dreamboats and sail toward adventure.

From Maiqui in the Andes floating through the constellations, to Aljuu paddling along the shores of Haida Gwaii with Eagle, Orca and Black Bear, to Ivan sailing into St. Petersburg, then sneaking between the bony legs of Baba Yaga, stories and memories lead them on.

Dream Boats takes readers into the dreams of children around the world, dreams that are filled with family and legends, culture and love.

FROM THE REVIEWS

Kirsti Anne Wakelin’s rich, multi-layered illustrations convey both the spirit of adventure and the children’s sleepiness. Whisking the reader between cultures and across boundaries of night and day, earth and air, reality and fantasy, the pictures embody the interweaving of the characters’ stories. Words and pictures float together and, like the Dream Boats, “dock gently.”

-starred review from the April 2013 issue of Quill and Quire Magazine, reviewed by Joanne Findon

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

The artwork for this book was created in a wide range of traditional media, including ink, watercolour, acrylic, willow charcoal and pencil on vellum and paper, in combination with ephemera and textiles, and finished digitally.

AWARDS AND HONOURS

• Short-listed for the 2014 Chocolate Lily Book Award

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SAMPLE ILLUSTRATIONS

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PRINTS & GREETING CARDS AVAILABLE.

• A selection of illustrations from Dream Boats are available as greeting cards on

• A selection of illustrations from Dream Boats are available as gallery-quality giclée prints on 

A series of posts documenting my process of illustrating the book is archived here.

There is also a collection of all the work-in-progress images including first sketches, reference material, mistakes, redraws, and tests, to final art, here, as a full-screen slideshow, or as a gallery.