Sleep, Merel, Sleep, your father tends the sheep. Your mother shakes the dreamland tree and from it fall sweet dreams for thee, sleep, Merel, sleep.3.5 stars Silke Stein has woven a surreal tale with lyrical prose that brings the reader into a weird and dreamlike fantasy world. Merel is an angry eight year old girl who has been kind of neglected by her parents after the birth of her sick baby brother, and the book starts with Merel throwing a tantrum in her bed to try to get the attention of her parents. The only attention she received, unfortunately, was from Merel's Sleep, who dropped his violin off and left. And now she must embark on an adventure to return the violin to her Sleep or she will be awake forever. Along the way she meets a myriad of characters, from a sleeping king to a saleswoman for the Sandman's finest.
Merel is brave, and comes to terms with both her brother and her parent's being overwhelmed during her adventure. I do wish that there had been more of a lead-in to her journey; the book went from her meeting Morph in her room to her leaving her house in the middle of the night and interacting with adults three days later. I know that this is fantasy, and part of the allure of this particular book is the dreamlike narrative, but it does bother me a little bit since this is a middle-grade book. Something just doesn't sit well with me that I think may have been negated by this particular segue being navigated differently.
Overall I enjoyed this story; Stein has a vast imagination. I think that children who have felt the jealousy of no longer being the only child and the resentment toward their younger sibling will relate with the anger and frustration that Merel experiences. The various characters that she meets on her adventure were so imaginative, and I laughed at the pea bit! Admittedly I felt the ending was a bit abrupt, but it is likely written this way to be left open for interpretation. Was she dreaming all along? But what was with the conductor? So many questions!!!
ARC provided by the author, Silke Stein, in exchange for my honest review.