Baby Dreams

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Many an adult has lingered a moment or two over a sleeping baby and
wondered what a sleeping infant could dream about. The time
author/illustrator Eugenie Fernandes served on cradle duty as a mother
and as a grandmother is the foundation of this lovely book about a
mother trying to peek inside her baby’s mind as he sleeps peacefully
in his bedroom: “Maybe you dream / of a place far away / Where babies
play, / and colors fly. // Maybe a sky / With thunder crashing, /
Raindrops falling. / Teardrops calling for a hug / to hold you safe /
and warm. // Dream shadows dancing. / Little eyes watching . . . / I
wonder what you see.”

Using a prose poem and vibrant tropical-flavored illustrations,
Fernandes depicts the mother imagining a nurturing world inhabited by
happy babies being warmed by smiling suns or coddled by maternal moons.
Rabbits and turtles swirl across every page as planets and stars dance
overhead. Even a slightly nightmarish cloudburst of cats and dogs (and
rabbits) leads to a reassuring rock in the cradle by the ever-vigilant
mother nearby. Baby Dreams just oozes cozy contentment without being
cloying. Highly recommended.