Review by Booklist Review
When Sandy goes to bed at night, tiny lights float around her head, and if she captures them, she can transform them into whimsical, vivid creatures, which she spends the next day drawing. Sure, they distract her from her schoolwork, but a scolding from the nuns at her Catholic school isn't so bad. When her special abilities gain the attention of a strange new girl, Morfie, Sandy thinks she's just made a new friend. But in her dreams later that night, a twisted creature appears making cruel demands, and Sandy's drawings become less joyful. Though the conflict seems a bit underdeveloped and the ending comes too soon, Alvarez's stunning, Miyazaki-like illustrations are jaw-dropping. Sandy's dream creatures bubble up together in a jumbled cloud of interlinked, jewel-toned images, and when her dreams are invaded by the greedy creature, the images subtly shift into something menacing. Qualms about pacing aside, the sumptuous artwork, from the velvety palette to the invitingly rounded figures, is a pleasure to gaze at. Let's hope there's more where this came from.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In a captivatingly eerie graphic novel from Colombian artist Alvarez, a young artist named Sandy finds the refuge of her imagination threatened by a mysterious interloper. For Sandy, it's easy to tap into a magical, Technicolor world of friendly, fantastical beasts-owls, giant octopi, tadpolelike creatures, and more-and those imaginings fuel her drawings. This changes when she befriends Morfie, a lavender-haired child who turns up at Sandy's Catholic school, which is run by strict nuns. Sandy's classmates don't notice Morfie, and when she later appears in Sandy's bedroom, she transforms into a sinister, spritelike creature. She begins to dictate how and what Sandy draws, raising uneasy questions about the way that critical opinions can influence an artist. "Once you realize that you need me to tell you... how brilliant you are... nothing will keep us apart!" the increasingly gruesome Morfie tells Sandy. Alvarez's haunting artwork features coiling plumes of lush colors and Miyazaki-esque beasts that create a sense of brooding melancholy. It's a deliciously hair-raising story that thoughtfully explores themes of isolation, creativity, and how social pressures can encroach on individuality. Ages 9-up Agency: Bright Group. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
When a young girl's imagination and creativity are co-opted by a mysterious new friend, she must find a way to regain what is rightfully hers.Sandy is a brown-skinned, dark-haired girl with big black eyes and a vivid imagination. At night, as she goes to sleep, she catches the lights bobbing about in her room and turns them into anything she imagines. The next day is spent drawing the fantastical creatures from her dreams, much to the detriment of her schoolwork. When a tall, pale-skinned girl with purple hair befriends her, Sandy is excited, though there is something eerie and unsettling about her new companion. Her excitement soon turns to anger as Morfie enters her imaginative nighttime world and tries to take it over. Readers will cheer at the clever way in which Sandy regains control. Using a lovely palette that includes a liberal amount of rich, dark purple, Colombian-born Alvarez has drawn a world that harks back to her native Bogot and days in Catholic school, evoking it in wonderful detail and atmosphere. Her pages are not crowded yet are filled with details that will engage readers. The beings that inhabit Sandy's nighttime world are simply delightful. The album size, cloth spine binding, and spot gloss on the cover are the icing on the cake of this beautiful graphic novel. A winner. (Graphic fantasy. 8-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
