The Dream Factory

At the edge of town there stands a dream factory. Every night after the sun sets the dream machine switches on. Lights flash, cogs turn, belts whirr and screens beep, and from the windows pours forth dream mist, drifting all across the town. The town’s inhabitants dream of wondrous things – riding unicorns, swimming with mermaids, flowers made of cake, talking tigers for instance and on waking those people make their dreams come true. Then one night through an open window of the factory there flies a kererū to explore. The bird drops one of its feathers; it gets caught in the dream machine and that evening at bedtime when the machine switches on, things go terribly wrong causing a grey-black mist to drift over the town. People’s dreams are now of unpleasant things and come morning they lock up the dream factory. No more dreams, no more new things, no more creativity; the kererū attempts to help come to nothing: sameness prevails until one night the bird dreams. Making a return visit to the factory, she breaks a glass window letting in the breeze once more. As it blows through the building, the feather is dislodged and floats to the floor. That evening the dream machine starts to function once again and out pours the dream mist drifting across town.

There’s a richness to both Steph Matuku’s text and Zak Ātea’s richly coloured, textured illustrations. With lots of alliteration and onomatopoeia and action words aplenty, the telling is great to read aloud and the atmospheric scenes draw the reader in to explore the multitude of detail on every spread. This story of the power of dreams and how they can enhance the imagination is likely to appeal over a wide age range and provides a starting point for creativity in the classroom.