The Dream Bearer (PB) (2004)

Printz Award winner Walter Dean Myers deftly draws a compassionate portrait of a boy's odyssey of self-discovery and the acceptance and empathy for others he learns along the way.

David doesn't know what to make of his father, Reuben. His older brother, Tyrone, says Reuben is crazy. But Tyrone is acting like someone David doesn't know anymore.

Then David meets Mr. Moses, a mysterious man who tells him that dreams might be the only things we have that are real. And it is Mr. Moses' gift of dreams that gives David a new way to see inside his father's heart.

I wonder what kind of dreams Reuben has. When I thought about him dreaming, I thought of him having a storm in his head, with lightning and far-off thunder and the wind blowing big raindrops and a bigger storm coming just down the street, just around the corner, like a monster waiting for you. I thought Reuben dreamed of monsters that scared him.

They scared me too.