A Head Full of Clouds by Joanne Schwartz is a whimsical story about a young girl and her incredible park adventures. Follow along as she experiences...

Puddles everywhere that look like miniature oceans.

Birds come to the bird feeder, pecking, pecking, pecking.

Hopping over the sidewalk lines.

Seeing pigeons sitting perched in a row atop a building rooftop.

Listening to the park sounds.

The joy of watching a child play with his dog.

Giggles rise like bubbles inside you as you cartwheel down the hill.

A row of ants march back and forth.

The best part is having your friend meet you in the park.

The book's illustrations are the perfect complement to the story. They are colorful and bright. As you read the story, you feel happy and wish you were in a park experiencing all the excitement yourself.

As you arise all sleepy and dreamy in the morning you come to be aware and notice everything around you. There is the illusion of motion and a return to the sea. A fine book for quiet reading time.
The illustrations by Afsaneh Sanei are simple, colorful, and FUN.
Well suited for reading WITH someone of any age including ESL, and great for gifting to EVERYONE, but especially to a school, hospital, or your local public library!
I requested and received a free temporary EARC on Adobe Digital Editions from Penguin Random House Canada | Tundra Books via NetGalley. Thank you! Avail Mar 18, 2025
#CanadianAuthor

I enjoyed the illustrations in this book! I feel like the overall theme of the dreams and foggy memories or reminiscing on the dream should've been played up more.

A wandering dream of a book with rich illustrations.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for this DRC.
#HeadFullofClouds #NetGalley

Do you have a little dreamer? If so, you will certainly want to pick up Head Full of Clouds. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and are sure to spark further imagination. I loved it so much that I was not ready for it to end so abruptly-hence the four stars. Truly beautiful.

Thank you to NetGalley for the digital arc.

I loved the illustrations; they were so artistic and creative and told a story all on their own. The story itself was pretty good. I thought this was a creative way to show how imaginations can work. I just felt the story wasn't as interesting or captivating as I had hoped. It felt a bit too simple and just missed the mark for me.

The illustrations and beautiful words make this a stellar story! My son enjoyed the illustrations very much, and of course I was partial to the emotional story being told alongside the illustrations.

Sometimes you wake up from a dream and your head feels fuzzy both not quite in focus yet super focused at the same time. This is a beautifully illustrated book with wonderful prose about noticing and appreciating the small things and actions and beauty in the world around you and the power of a person to bring you back to earth in the best way. Would make a wonderful addition to any children’s book collection.

This gorgeously illustrated picture book features simple text and surrealist art, as a girl wakes up from her dream and keeps seeing dreamlike things wherever she goes. There isn't much of a story here, but the illustrations are marvelous, and the ending is satisfying.

Head Full of Clouds is like an invitation to engage in life and connect with the world all around. It will leave you being speculative and more aware of the small wonders waiting to be noticed. Yes, it is a picture book, but adults reading it will also sense the calmness and beauty it holds.

A young girl wakes from a dream feeling foggy as though her head is in the clouds. Throughout the day she connects in a new way with the everyday world she encounters including puddles, birds, plants, ants, a fiddler and finally a hug from a friend. She also remembers her dream, and by day’s end her world seems more solid and sunny and beautiful.

This book encourages us to be aware of all the bits of life taking place around us inviting us to connect and feel grounded. Every sense is used in some way – seeing flowers & birds, hearing music & park sounds, tasting an apple, smelling grass, feeling the coolness of the shade of a tree and finally being hugged by a friend.

The language is so descriptive, and flows like poetry. It would be fun to ask a child to close their eyes, listen, and imagine all that takes place, then read the book again looking at the beautiful and full illustrations. The reader will be drawn with the desire to engage in similar activities such as putting seed in the bird feeder then stepping back to watch, or sitting beneath the shade of a tree and listening to the sounds around them, or rolling down a hill making all seem topsy-turvy.

I believe this simple picture book offers many uses to impact children both young and old. Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

I didn’t read the description when I requested an advanced copy of this new picture book on Netgalley. The cover drew me in. A yellow rain jacket. Reflections. Puddles. Trees. Fish. A moody girl with her head full of clouds. How could I, a girl from rainy Vancouver, possibly resist these elements? But from the opening lines and pictures, a rarer element took me by surprise.

Head Full of Clouds is rich in surrealism. While other children’s books might have touches of surreal language and art, this title is overtly surrealist in form and content. If you’ve experienced Salvador Dali’s artwork or the poetry of Andre Breton, you’ve already had some strong doses of this genre and can likely detect it instantly. It’s a great one for children, given that they tend to think subconsciously. With the prefrontal cortex not fully developed, children regularly escape the confines of a strict perception of reality.

But other genres do this too. Isn’t surrealism just a form of fantasy and imagination? Arguably, no.

The surreal is different from the fantastical, the magical, or the imaginary. It is always a surprise, but not an intrusive one that preoccupies the mind. Rather, it is the kind of surprise that has been there all along, waiting to be recognized. Plain as day. Natural. Unselfconscious. Subconscious. Nearer to the spiritual than anything else, the surreal relinquishes and rejuvenates perception so that the unknown seems familiar and the familiar seems unknown. It is the nearest place of interest and attention. Nothing is taken for granted or expected. In this way, it is also near to gratitude and the purest forms of realization.

So, how does one review a surrealist book for children? You don’t. You simply remain in a surrealist attitude and muse about things. The author (Joanne Schwartz) uses a second person point of view. Neither immediate nor distant. Both familiar and unfamiliar. A perfect narrative structure for surrealism. The illustrator (Afsaneh Sanei) references Alice in Wonderland in one spread with a long dining table and a smart looking hare. Fish swim in the sky as dream reality adjusts to day reality. Birds replace them. Order is ruptured and restored continually throughout the story, but firmly set back in place with a sense of friendship and shared reality at the end. Exquisitely done.

I really enjoyed reading this storybook to my son. It made me feel nostalgic in a way that my favorite poems make me feel. It honestly reminded me of a poem. I could feel the feelings being described perfectly. I smiled the whole time reading it. It’s a perfect book about childhood. The art was gorgeous as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an ARC of this beautiful, enchanting storybook.

This is a quirky little tale of how a girl has a unique way of seeing the world around her. Her brain is fast and sees the whimsy others might not. And sometimes her brain slows down and helps her notice things that make the world special. The illustrations are vibrant and make the magic of this story truly stand out!

This is about a girl going about her day after waking up from a dream. It has bright, beautiful pictures, but not much of a plot.