Daydreams for Night by John Southworth and David Ouimet (illustrations)

Hardcover, 48 pages
Published September 1st 2014 by Simply Read Books
Source: Publisher

Before I talk about the contents of this book, a shout out to the book designer Naomi MacDougall because this book is beautiful. Observe:

The cover, once again:

Without the dust jacket:

The end pages:

The interior design:

Now that there’s no doubt about how beautiful this book is, let’s talk about the contents. The art by David Ouimet fits the tone of the stories perfectly. Black and white with thick lines that augur the atmosphere echoed in the stories, this book is very much a collaboration between the author and the artist.

The stories prove most interesting though to be quite honest, I wasn’t as enamored by them as I was by the physicality of this book. The stories, or rather, vignettes are sometimes bizarre and leave a lot to the imagination. My favourite among them is “Girl Guide Cookies” because it revealed a bit, hinted a lot, and left the reader imagining. I reckon this book could be used in classrooms as a tool for teaching creative writing. Read each vignette to the class and ask the students to complete or continue the stories in whichever direction they desire. Daydreams for Night will, perhaps, be more popular with older readers who are able to work through more abstract storytelling than younger ones who still need the ends neatly tied.