Dean Morrissey's brightly colored paintings compliment this story of Joey's determination to stay awake and catch the Sandman like his friend Henry did the night before. Follow Joey in his flannel footy pajamas on his adventure, searching for the Sandman's ship as he sails through the sky in his Redd Rocket wagon.

Ship of dreams is driven by its beautiful illustrations. The illustrations in this book bring the imaginative tale to life. The author does a good job of getting inside the head of an adventurous and kind hearted child who can be seen growing and maturing in the book. At the end of the book, the main character decides not to tell his friend about his adventure, and this makes the readers knowledge of the events that much more special. It is like the reader and the two main characters have a wonderful secret that no one else will know. ( )

A book for children...of all ages. This is incredibly illustrated. The art work is mesmerizingly, stunningly beautiful.

Joey's friend Henry claims to have seen the sandman. Curious, Joey is determined to stay awake to see if he can have the same experience.

As Joey's eyes begin to close, he is magically transported to the sky of stars where he rides in a strange ship with billowing sails and a huge balloon keeping the contraption afloat.

Gliding right behind the sunset, following it right around the world, Joey and the Sandman ride right in front of the sunset.

Joey and the delightful, long-robed, bearded, jolly Sandman place stars in the sky and visit all the sleeping children of the world.

Absolutely gorgeous artwork.... so good in fact that it may actually outshine the story. Not that it's a bad story - it's not. It's just that with artwork like that you expect the story to be extraordinary as well. You get the feeling the story was written to showcase the artwork instead of the other way around. ( )