Boat of Dreams

Brazil’s 2015 Jabuti Award for best children’s illustration

Best Books for Kids 2017 — New York Public Library

How does a fastidious old man with bowler, umbrella, suspenders, and a Salvador Dali mustache come to live on a deserted island? How does a boy come to live alone in an apparently deserted city? Are they separated by distance or by time? Does the man dream the boy? Does the boy dream the man? Is a blank paper in a floating bottle an invitation to imagine our futures? Is the man’s flying boat an encouragement to the boy to dream? Are the man and the boy the same person?the boy dwelling in the man’s memory? Is a message in a bottle the earthbound dreams of the elderly? Is a flying boat the unconstrained dreams of the young? This wordless, many-layered 80-page picture book invites all these interpretations and more. The intricately detailed illustrations reveal new wonders with each viewing. Neither children nor adults will ever tire of this wonderful testament to imagination, memory, and dreams.
Rogério Coelho has illustrated more than 100 books in Brazil, where he lives, and he won Brazil’s top literary prize, the Jabuti Award, in 2012. He illustrates for children’s magazines internationally, including Storytime Magazine in England. He conceived Boat of Dreams while spending a few winter days with his children in a coastal Brazilian village, surrounded by a beautiful but gray landscape. The boy and the man appeared instantly in his imagination, but it took him almost seven years to complete the book. “The story became much bigger than my first concept, but I could not find ways to tell it otherwise,” he says. “When walking toward the future I never forget to look back, and I always see a boy who loves to draw. And when I look ahead, I can’t see another picture than this.”
“Haunting.” - Publisher’s Weekly

“Stunning.” - School Library Journal (starred review)

“Gorgeous.” - Booklist (starred review)

"An old man on an island and a young child in a city form a connection through messages in bottles and ships on paper in Brazilian Coelho’s wordless, dreamlike spectacle. An elderly white man wakes, alone but for a few avian companions, and discovers a blank piece of paper in a bottle washed up on the shore of his island home. After some consideration, he pencils on it an intricate drawing of a ship, returns the paper to the bottle, and tosses it back into the waves. Elsewhere, ensconced in an urban landscape, a dark-haired, pale-skinned child comes home to find an unmarked envelope on the doorstep?inside is the old man’s drawing. From here, a journey commences?maybe in reality, maybe in a dream?bringing the two characters together in a brief, touching meeting. As with all wordless picture books, this narrative is a negotiation between illustration and readers. Are these characters grandfather and grandchild crossing space? Future and past versions of the same person transcending time? Or perhaps simply a pair whose loneliness is eased by dreams born of isolation. With spreads defying the barrier of the gutter, maneuvering visual perspective, and expertly paced page turns, Coelho’s methodical cacophony of highly detailed visual invention successfully (if narrowly) avoids miring the narrative momentum in its artistry. A nuanced physical and emotional landscape aimed to capture experienced readers but likely to snag the occasional neophyte as well." - Kirkus