Only Fish Fall from the Sky

Only Fish Fall from the Sky
by Leif Parsons
Pow! Publishing. 2015. Picture Book.

A boy wakes up from a very strange dream. He cannot believe what he saw -- water falling from the sky! He reminds the reader, "how ridiculous. Everyone knows only fish fall from the sky." What follows is a series of similar nonsense, with the narrator treating absurd statements as obvious fact -- until, that is, he wakes up from this dream. As it turns out, his first dream went much deeper than he realized.

The literal-minded may become frustrated with this book before it reveals its final twist, but those with a taste for the surreal should not miss out. Parsons accompanies his absurd story with even more bizarre illustrations, adopting a Where's Waldo?-like spread to each dream anecdote. These pages are rich in detail, with the absurd elements beautifully colored while the banal parts remain black and white. It's a terrific visual metaphor for this book, which clearly has more fun with dream logic than our own reality.

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