Gossamer (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Gossamer April Spisak Lowry, Lois Gossamer. Lorraine/Houghton, 2006140p ISBN 0-618-68550-2$16.00 Ad Gr. 4-6 Littlest One, known as Littlest, is a trainee dream-giver, learning to move softly through houses and pick up fragments of the inhabitants' lives, in order to bestow dreams upon them. Her charge is eight-year-old John, taken into foster care because of his father's abuse and suffering the visits of a Sinisteed, a former dream-giver now turned nightmare-inflicter. The focus of the story alternates between Littlest, undergoing a crash course in dream giving so that she may help John quickly, and John, who resists the unconditional acceptance of his foster mother by pushing the limits of every rule she sets. The world of the dream-givers and Sinisteeds is imaginatively created, with a lyrical and delicate style appropriate to its subject matter. The delicacy sometimes becomes coy and mannered, though, and the fantasy world overshadows the growing relationship between John and his unnamed foster mother. The human story is also heavy handed; the rescue drama is fairly hackneyed (and John's caretaker is a pretty unrealistic foster parent in her naïveté), and the maturation and healing of the characters is conveyed through their lengthy discussions of the subject rather than through the book's demonstration of their growth. Nonetheless, the novel effectively evokes the flimsy and sometimes tentative grasp on happiness and comfort in a way many readers will understand. Although the sentimental happy ending is expected, it will still be welcomed for both John and Littlest, who each gain new insight into themselves, the goodness of others, and the ways in which darkness can be combated through love. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois