Review: A Journey Into Imagination Indeed -- all kids aboard !!!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 7, 2014
Anat Umansky’s book “A Journey into Imagination” is adorable! Toddlers and young children (perhaps especially the little girls but little boys too) alike will love this book which encourages them to imagine all sorts of things and to realize that just about anything is possible—and you never know, maybe they can even eventually grow up to be just what they imagine themselves to become! I should also add that I love the beautiful, thoughtfully and carefully done illustrations by Eevgeny Lagutin and there’s even an audio book version of the story that goes along with the Kindle edition of the book.At the start of the book we meet Julie, a young girl who loves to use her imagination to make herself happy—even if it means that Julie “pretends she doesn't hear” her mother telling her to make her room orderly again after playing in it! “Julie laughs and tries to feel how the wall must feel. A wall that all sorts of things hang on it, (a) wall that always stands in the same place, never sits down... (a) wall that never goes for a walk... doesn't move. Julie doesn't like to be a wall.” Instead, Julie uses her imagination for fun: she pretends that she can literally move mountains; become as powerful as a storm; turn herself into a sparrow and be “as free as a bird;” dance like the flame of a candle even when she is ill with a fever and must stay in bed; become an “enchanted flower” when she “wears her pink dress”—and so much more! Julie just can’t get enough of playing “let’s pretend” and that’s grand as little children should be encouraged to let their imaginations grow in positive ways. Julie even knows how to play “let’s pretend” when she’s scared of things so that fear “must stop scaring (her) right away.”I highly recommend this charming children’s book for both toddlers and young children who will definitely love and identify with Julie as they learn the fun of playing “let’s pretend” and maybe even discover that what they pretend can become a positive reality for them when they get older!  In addition, the vocabularies of small children will be enhanced as they read this book and grownups can happily bond with young kids as they read this story together. Great work, Anat and Eevgeny; keep these fine children’s books coming!