Author: Elizabeth Knox
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright: 2006
ISBN: 9780374318536
Reading Level: Grades 9-12
Interest Age: Grade 7 and up
Genre: Fantasy--Alternate and Parallel Worlds
Reader’s Annotation: Laura has a rare gift--she can enter the Place, which means she can become a dreamhunter like her famous father.
Plot Summary
At 15 cousins Laura and Rose are ready to make their Try—the official first attempt to enter the Place, an alternate world whose borders only a rare few can cross. Those few can become dreamhunters, bringing back vivid dreams from deep within the Place to the cities of Southland, where audiences gather in luxurious dream palaces to share them. Laura’s father discovered the Place 20 years earlier, and Rose’s mother is among the most famous (and wealthiest) of the dreamhunters. Confident, beautiful Rose is sure that she will enter the Place at her Try and become a dreamhunter, but Laura has doubts about her own abilities.
To everyone's surprise, Laura passes her Try and Rose fails. But Laura begins to uncover the Place's dark side right away, by catching a nightmare instead of the entertaining dream she was supposed to find on her Try. And when she returns, her father has disappeared. There are hints of a government conspiracy and cryptic final instructions from Laura’s father. When she heads into the Place to try to carry them out, Laura discovers that she possesses an unusual brand of magic that runs in her family. Mysteries abound and the real action is barely beginning when the book ends, making the sequel, Dreamquake, a must-read.
Critical Evaluation
Dreamhunter gets off to a bit of a slow start. The world, characters, and plot are all complicated and occasionally confusing. There is much to explain about how Southland society and dreamhunting work. Knox adds a historical element by basing the non-magical parts of Southland on early 20th-century New Zealand. She also spends a lot of time introducing Laura and Rose’s family history and the relationships among the family members. Later on, especially in the second book, this groundwork serves the reader well, but it makes this one hard to get into. (The two books would make more sense as a single volume, since the second picks up essentially where the first left off.) But although most of the action takes place in the sequel, Dreamhunter still succeeds at building intrigue and tension. The highly original premise makes the reader eager to learn more about the Place and share in its powerful dreams. (The ones recounted here are mesmerizing.)
The characters are realistically flawed. Laura is rather dour for a heroine, and since much of the third-person narrative focuses on her perspective, her dark outlook influences the tone of the book. The sandman Laura creates late in the book is the most fascinating character, though his personality takes a while to emerge. In his company, Laura becomes more sympathetic.
Curriculum Ties: N/A
Booktalking Ideas
Read the description of one of the famous dreams performed at dream palaces.
Tell the story of how Laura's father discovered the Place.
Challenge Issues: N/A
About the Author
Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Elizabeth is the middle of three sisters. The Knox family moved around a number of times during Elizabeth’s childhood. They lived in Pomare, Wadestown, Waikanae, and Paremata. The sisters were close, and always played imaginary games. By the time Elizabeth was eleven, the games had become one game, an ongoing saga set in another world -- a game she shared with her sisters and several friends. One day, when Elizabeth was sixteen, her father interrupted a discussion the girls were having about the possible results of a secret treaty and said, “I hope you’re writing some of this down.” The idea hadn’t occurred to Elizabeth before, and she thought it was a very good one. She, her sisters, and friends began writing letters between their characters and stories about them. Elizabeth enjoyed writing and decided that this -- writing fiction -- was what she wanted to do with her life.
When Elizabeth left her secondary school, Tawa College, which she attended from 1972 to 1976, she took a job as a clerk in the Inland Revenue department in Porirua. While workmates her age were saving for cars, weddings, and overseas travel, Elizabeth saved in order to take eight months off work and write a novel. This first novel, One Too Many Lives, completed when she was nineteen, was not to be published (though there was kind interest from a number of publishers in New Zealand and the UK). Again Elizabeth went back to work to save money, and at twenty-two took another year off and wrote another novel, Salamander, which she disliked and put away.
In 1983, Elizabeth went to Victoria University and began a degree in English literature. In 1984 she took Bill Manhire’s Original Composition course and began writing After Z-Hour. Bill Manhire encouraged her to finish it (actually, he told her he’d rather see her finish her novel than her degree). After Z-Hour was published by Victoria University Press in 1987. The same year, Elizabeth graduated from Victoria University with a B.A. in English literature and was awarded the ICI Young Writers Bursary (now the Louis Johnson Bursary).
Elizabeth Knox has been a full-time writer since 1997. She has published eight novels and three autobiographical novellas. Her best-known book is The Vintner’s Luck, which won the Deutz Medal for fiction in the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the 2001 Tasmania Pacific Region Prize. The Vintner’s Luck has been published in seven languages and is being made into a film by Niki Caro (Whale Rider; North Country). Elizabeth’s most recent book, Daylight, was short-listed for Best Book in the South Pacific & South East Asian Region of the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize. Elizabeth’s first book for young adults, Dreamhunter: Book One of the Dreamhunter Duet, was chosen as a White Raven by the International Youth Library, and is the winner of New Zealand’s prestigious Esther Glen Medal. Its sequel, Dreamquake, was published in March 2007.
Elizabeth lives in Wellington with her husband, Fergus Barrowman, and their son, Jack.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/elizabethknox
Why is this title included?
Dreamhunter is one of Booklist's Top 10 Fantasy Books for Youth, 2006 and YALSA's Best Books for Young Adults, 2007. Its sequel, Dreamquake, is a 2008 Printz Award Honor Book.