Title: To Dream of Dancing
Author: Z.W. Mohr and Aaron Damon Porter
Published: Feb. 1, 2016
Publisher: Desdemona's Dreams LLC.
Pages: 64
Review: Book received by author
Genre: Children ages 10 on up
11 year old Desdemona has grown up in a world where dreams are as real to her as the waking world is to everyone else. Raised by her two aunts, Lulu Ann and Lulu Bell, in an old Victorian house in the small town of Remsy, she goes on adventures with her guardian and confidant stuffed bear named Teddy. All of a sudden Desdemona’s dreams, that have always been very important to her, start invading the waking world and she is faced with the conundrum of why this is happening.
Upon awakening from a long night filled with a nightmare where her dream of dancing, personified by a ballerina, has been captured, Desdemona confides in Teddy and then has to make her way to Grayson Drab Elementary School. At school she’s treated as an outsider, more and more so with every passing year. The children around her have slowly stopped using their imaginations as much, and often don’t play any games that require them. Desdemona is ostracized for being considered a day dreamer and receives no solace on the playground or in the classroom with her strict teacher Ms. Kaputski. It’s in the classroom where she fades off again into the dream world and once again encounters The Maestro.
As she faces off against the mad Maestro, that has captured Desdemona’s dream of dancing, the grave importance of her task becomes very real. If her dream perishes as the Maestro’s slave then Desdemona will never want to dance again, and that isn’t something she’s about to let happen. The Maestro won’t give up Desdemona’s dream of dancing unless the song he’s creating is finished so he challenges Desdemona to help find a suitable ending to his masterpiece. This offer is given with the catch that Desdemona will have to be his slave as well if she doesn’t find the ending within the hour. When Desdemona wakes up back in class she realizes that she has pulled something out of the dream world with her. This astonishing discovery is overshadowed by the fact that she must finish the Maestro’s song.
After rushing out of the classroom and heading to the music room to use the instruments available to figure out an ending to the Maestro’s song, she runs into the music teacher Mr. Harrison. He’s one of the few characters at the school that Desdemona connects with because of how he relates dreamers to being the best music makers. After a short interaction with Mr. Harrison, Desdemona becomes painfully aware of how little time she has left to finish the Maestro’s song and rushes to try out different instruments that might help her find an ending. In the midst of running around the music room she inadvertently stumbles upon the one instrument that helps her finish the piece.
Desdemona returns to the Maestro’s lair and their final confrontation ends with her finishing his master piece and leaving the dream world with the dancer holding her hand. The story ends with her Aunts having a conversation about Desdemona’s triumph over the Maestro, even though it’s not unveiled as to how they could possibly know about this. What will happen next? Why can Desdemona pull things out of dreams? Who is she really? All of this will be unveiled in the volumes of Desdemona’s Dreams to come.
