"And so it seemed to her that he had always been a part of the landscape of her life, this great white bear. She brought him rosehips to sweeten his days, tried to explain how, once they had been flowers, but now were seeds.
He had never seen a rose. He told her stories, coloured with every shade of white, and spoke of a sky that danced with lights..."
The Unwinding and Other Dreamings by Jackie Morris, is a book that I reach for every winter season. It is a tiny little book, but one that is filled with so much charm it lingers in the mind long after the final page has been read. It also features my favourite illustrations by this artist - a red curtained wagon, hung with glowing lanterns and filled with shelves of books, like a mobile library, which is being pulled along by a great white bear. The bear is ridden by a lady with long dark, Rapunzel hair and she reads as she goes, lost in her world of words and dreams. Later in the book she is shown sleeping peacefully with her polar bear as their dreams mingle to become one story of love and devotion. She is a storyteller and a collector of dreams, and she and her ice bear travel the world with their Library of Lost Dreams and Half-Imagined Things.
As the title suggests, this is a book of dreamings and imaginings, lavishly illustrated with the author's stunning watercolour artworks, it is a book that is designed to dip in and out of, to read slowly as you savour each story. The fairytales presented here are fantastical and whimsical, set in snowy landscapes and autumnal woodlands. There are fourteen tales in all, each one unique and lyrical and the book ends with a magical blessing of the wild creatures.
In this little volume of winter magic you will find the dreams of the ice bears, a fox wedding, moon gazing hares, a new take on Little Red Riding Hood, winged monkeys, fish that fly and the queen of winter. There are philosophical questions such as what are the shapes of your dreams and where does love reside? Is a story really just a series of questions and answers or something more, and do all questions need an answer to be valid, or are the questions valid in themselves? Where do dreams come from, how do they take form in our mind and can we dream something into being, into our reality? I believe that we can.
This gorgeous book is full of wisdom that will lead you to ask yourself such questions and possibly many more too. It is a book that makes you think, makes you dream, makes you long to dance on a boat in the arms of a polar bear, and dream of a love that thrives in the space between the notes of a bird's song. The author has prescribed this book like medicine, "Take one story last thing at night before bed, then tuck the book beneath your pillow..." It is certainly a lovely distraction from stress and anxiety, leading the reader to a calming realm of fantasy, fairytale and the enduring, unconditional love we can find in our animal friends. It would make a great stocking filler for an older child, teenager or anyone who loves fairytales and beautiful artwork of a whimsical nature.
The Unwinding and Other Dreamings is the kind of book you will want to curl up with on Christmas Eve, so that you can be spirited away by the dancing ice bears to their realm of icicle dreams and visions of snowy splendour. "But if you wake to the light to find a book beside your bed - small, bound in beautiful covers - then you will know that in the night they travelled past, that you were dreaming, even if the waking has swept the memory of your dream far from you. You will know they followed the scent..." and visited you in the wee small hours of the night!
Enjoy the dreaming! Wishing you a peaceful and blessed winter season, wherever you are. Have a wonderful day. 😺
With love from,
Marie x🫶
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