Picture Book of the Day: Hank Has a Dream

Hank Has a Dream, written and illustrated by Rebecca Dudley. In this wonderful follow-up to Hank Finds an Egg, Dudley's furry hero dreams that he can fly, and then reenacts this flight of fancy for his hummingbird pal (from the egg he saved in the first book). Dudley's painstakingly detailed miniature dioramas create a delightful atmosphere--Hank and his feathery pal burst with adorable cuteness but do so without feeling cloying. I love the layout and design of this story: each spread shows reality on the left side and the dream on the right (for example, we see Hank and the bird sitting on a bridge over a stream on one side of the page, and flying in a zeppelin over the ocean on the other). The first book is wordless; here Dudley uses spare language describing the journey to good effect. Another winner from a talented artist.