A Closer Look at the Stories

“In Your Dreams”

The first books we created and published were part of the In Your Dreams series. The plan was actually to start with a different series that had already been written and storyboarded, but this is the business part of picture books: We knew we had someone who could illustrate these books in just the right way, and weren’t going to pass that up. Thus, In Your Dreams became our first published series, and we love it!

Artist Michelle Winks has a style of illustration that takes the vagueness of dreams and gives them a face to match the story. They flow with color and whimsy. And this was perfect, because the point of these books is to show children a little of what can happen inside their own minds when the subconscious or unconscious takes over and they spend eight hours floating through adventures they hadn’t imagined, but would’ve missed out on had they not climbed into bed and finally fallen asleep.

Kids don’t seem to like sleep; at least they certainly make a habit of protesting when bedtime comes–and it makes sense. As adults, we often dislike having to put down what we’re doing or say goodbye to a less-than-fulfilling day, perhaps one for which we had higher expectations than what we settled for. Sometimes as parents we also don’t want to lose out on our personal time while the kids are asleep. Whatever the cause, we can sympathize with children on this point – but they also have the factor of not really understanding just why they actually do have to go to sleep when it’s time.

They’ve read no articles or heard any podcasts about the benefits of sleep, how X amount of hours does this and that to the brain and cells in the body and whatnot. They don’t think they’ll lack the energy to enjoy tomorrow if they do not sleep well tonight, and from my own experience, they hate being bored. And lying in bed until you fall asleep is boring if you are a little bundle of energy like most toddlers.

So, along came the idea for the In Your Dreams series. Showing kids that even sleep can be fun, if they employ a bit of their imagination while lying in bed. The nature itself of these books makes it so these stories could be created and published for years: If you can dream it, you can imagine it, write it into a story, and illustrate that story. And that’s just what we’ll be doing in the coming years!