Dreamsleeves

by Paratore, Coleen Murtagh

• ISBN13: 9780545310208
• ISBN10: 0545310202
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-04-01
• Publisher: Scholastic Press

Summary

A powerful, radiant story about a girl who wears her dreams on her sleeve . . . Aislinn is a girl with a lot of dreams, but due to family issues (caused mostly by her hard-drinking father), there's a lot standing in her way. While she should be enjoying the summer with friends, Aislinn is kept under lock and key and put in charge of her younger siblings. The average girl might give up, but not Aislinn. A person, she says, should write their dreams on their sleeve, putting them out there for the world to see, because there's a good chance that someone might come along and help you make your dream come true. What begins as a plea for help for her father to stop drinking, turns into a spark that has the whole community making their own dreamsleeves. At times heartbreaking, DREAMSLEEVES is also surprising, powerful, and luminously hopeful. Everyone will see a little of themselves in Aislinn, a girl with talent, ambition, and big dreams.

Author Biography

Coleen Murtagh Paratore is the author of the popular THE WEDDING PLANNER'S DAUGHTER series, which includes most recently, FORGET ME NOT, WISH I MIGHT, and FROM WILLA, WITH LOVE. She is also the author of SUNNY HOLIDAY and SWEET AND SUNNY. The mother of three teenage sons, she lives in upstate New York and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Visit Coleen online at www.coleenparatore.com.

Excerpts

From Dreamsleeves

My father collects hubcaps. That's his hobby. When we're out for our family drive on Sunday afternoon, we'll be speeding along the highway in Dad's old red convertible, top down, wind whipping my hair back like I'm on a roller coaster, and sometimes Dad will spot one of those silver circles lying along the roadside. It's like he's got X-ray vision for those things, he spots them so far away.

Dad will slam on the brakes, screech, flip on the blinking lights, and swerve our car right off the highway, dirt clouds swooping up making me cough like I'm front row at a rodeo. My mother will be holding Baby Eddie on her lap in the front seat and yell at my father for nearly killing us all, but my dad ignores her. He's on a mission.

"Sit still. I'll be right back," he tells me, B, C, and D, lined like sausage links in a pan.

I stick my head out the window and watch him pick up that silver circle, his face all excited like a kid on Christmas morning. He turns it around in his hands and studies the emblem in the center that tells what sort of car this particular hubcap fell off of. My father loves cars. His dream is to own a Cadillac, the fanciest, most expensive car of all. Mom says we need a station wagon, though, so we can all fit.

When the hubcap is from a car he doesn't have in his collection yet, my dad smiles, and I smile, happy for him. Later, at home, he'll shine up that hubcap and hang it on a nail on the wall in the shed with the others. My dad's got a whole hubcap gallery. It's quite a display. He's very proud of them. Prouder of them than me, I think.