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J. R. Parks's The Unfinished City is a dreamy fantasy adventure for 8 year olds about a girl who learns to fly in her sleep and wakes up in a hidden city.
Rella PenSword is nine. Her mum is the leader of a secret group called the Storykeepers, and Rella hasn't seen her since she was four. Now Rella and her Uncle J have moved into an almost empty flat in Anselm, a half-built city tucked away in the desert.
It's the sort of place where rooftops are covered in glowing plants. And it has a secret. Anselm was built as a safe place for the Storykeepers and their precious Red Notebooks, until a shadowy enemy found a way in.
Rella spends a lot of this book asleep. Or rather, she spends it in dreamscapes. It opens with her soaring over the city in a pair of flying Tal-boots, chasing someone she can't quite recognise. It turns out to be her friend Quinn, who's building the dream city for her to practise in. He hasn't quite got the air supply right yet!
Then there's SK, the gentle woman who lives upstairs and bakes the best treats. Rella's sure she knows her. She's right, and the reason why is one of the loveliest surprises in the opening chapters.
It's full of ideas. Robots in tuxedos called SNOBS. Magic pencils. Documents slipped in between the chapters, like reports and diary entries, which let your reader piece together what's really going on.
The best moment is when SK reads aloud from Rella's missing mum's notebook. Rella hears her mum's words for the first time in years, and she's close to tears (bring a tissue if you've got a sensitive one).
One thing to be ready for. The writing drifts the way dreams do. The very first paragraph is a jumble of images, and it takes a while to work out what's real. Some readers will love that floaty, puzzling feel. Others might want a bit of help at the start, or a grown-up to read it with them.
It also carries straight on from an earlier book. Rella keeps remembering people and places from her last adventure, and it'll make much more sense if your reader has been there too.
If they haven't, begin with The Wondercurrent. That's where Rella first slips into another world through her dreams and meets a girl with a golden braid who becomes her guide.
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