Starbright and the Dream Eater - Hardcover

Cowley, Joy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060284196 ISBN 13: 9780060284190

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2000

Synopsis

There is a new deadly illness on Earth.

Starbright Connor is beginning to wonder why everyone in Claircomb has gone so wuzzling mad over some mysterious sickness that is probably just a media scare.

Early symptoms suggest disturbed sleep patterns.

Starbright thinks spindle sickness is something that happens only to other people, until the day her best friend, Mark, falls asleep and won't wake up.

In five years there will be no place to run to.

Now Starbright must strike out on her own. But how is atwelve-year-old supposed to save the world?

But why, suddenly, the big wahoo on spindle sickness? Everyone had talked for years about it, a virus disease in remote South America, the in Africa, Australia. People got tired and went to sleep and didn't wake up. How could it be here, less than thirty miles away? Nah. Wasn't possible. An outbreak would be too unreal for words...

About this title

About the Author

Joy Cowley is the award-winning author of over 40 books for children and young adults, including The Silent One, which The New York Times Educational Supplement hailed as a book "that will not be forgotten" and The Horn Book called "brilliantly evocative." Ms. Cowley is also the author of Singing Down the Rain, illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist, and Starbright and the Dream Eater. Ms. Cowley lives in New Zealand.

Reviews

Grade 5-8-A bizarre science-fiction tale set in the present. As the story begins, a midwife assists in delivering a baby born to Esther, a brain-damaged teen. Twelve years later, several residents in the area are stricken with the mysterious "spindle sickness," in which victims are tormented by horrible nightmares, fall into a deep sleep, and never wake. Starbright Connor, the child born in the opening pages, cannot grasp the concept of nightmares. She can control her dreams and guide them according to her wishes. As panic over the infectious disease mounts, the midwife returns to inform Starbright of research that suggests that it is not caused by a virus as suspected but rather by a "space parasite" that feeds off living energy. Evidence seems to indicate that Starbright is the one individual with the ability to defeat the alien force. At first, the girl is incredulous, but is gradually convinced of her powers. In an exciting final confrontation, she triumphs over the Dream Eater just in time to save her loved ones. While the story is certainly unique, readers may find it difficult to suspend disbelief. Further, the conclusion, in which the epidemic is conveniently wiped from everyone's memory, is a bit too neat. However, the more realistic elements of the story are well developed. Starbright's relationship with Esther is particularly moving, and the life lessons she learns from her help to inform and empower her. An acceptable title for readers preferring fantasy that is firmly grounded in human emotion.
Ronni Krasnow, formerly at DC Public Library System, Washington, DC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An alien predator that strikes through dreams threatens all humanity in this contrived but suspenseful import from the versatile Cowley (Red-Eyed Tree Frog, 1999, etc.). Spindle Sickness, a mysterious plague that begins with nightmares and ends in death, has struck several of Starbright Connor's schoolmates. She learns of a widely ridiculed message purportedly sent through time and space by the "Guardians of the Universe" decades before. This message has warned of an all-devouring danger that can be countered only by a "Bright Star" who is without fear. Having always been able, to a certain extent, to control her dreams, Starbright finds that only she can resist the Dream Eater's attacks. As the spread of the disease brings public anxiety and local quarantines, off she hies to do battle, in a series of dreamscapes, against an enemy who proves as wily as it is powerful. Thanks to unexpected help from her brain-damaged older sister (who, in a pointless, badly fumbled subplot turns out to be her mother!), Starbright discovers that just confronting the Dream Eater with love rather than fear or anger vanquishes it so thoroughly that time itself rewinds, settling on an alternate "overlay" in which the creature never existed. Though not up to the standards of such terror classics as Neal Shusterman's Eyes of Kid Midas (1992) or Margaret Mahy's Changeover (1984), this will still provide readers with some unnerving moments and a resourceful, self-confident heroine. (Fiction. 11-13) -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060284196
• ISBN 13: 9780060284190
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208