The Dreamer by Sue Hampton
“I have missed you,” he’d say, as he told me once before,
“like I miss the blue the sky forgets…”
A magical fairy story, brilliantly and imaginatively written, this story is not just for children.
Everyone should read this story, and more than once. Sue’s words keep the child in you alive, and as I have often told my own children and grandchildren, there are no grown-ups, only older children.
I was glad to be reminded that the hidden child in all of us can be your best friend. Sue herself has said that she believes in the power of stories, and I believe as passionately about the power of words too, having felt their strength many times.
Sue certainly knows how to use words. Reading The Dreamer was better than a good meal. I must eat and sleep before reading The Dreamer again, and would love to get inside Sue’s head to steal her next few hundred words and claim them as my own.
The Author
Sue Hampton is proud to be an ambassador for Alopecia UK. She is also an ex-teacher who was inspired to write by the stories of Michael Morpurgo, because she witnessed their emotional power over young readers.
Like him, she aims to write deep, compelling novels that will make people think and feel – and like him, she has many adult fans.
Now a full-time author, Sue visits schools of all kinds and works with young people of all ages. Many of her passions can be detected in her novels, which are all different, (some historical, one futuristic, one magical and funny) but have in common themes like love, courage, freedom and our right to be different. Sue herself looks a little different from most women because she has alopecia, having lost all her hair in 1981.
After writing THE WATERHOUSE GIRL about a girl with alopecia, she began going bareheaded and feels strangely liberated even though it is not easy. As a result of a feature in The Big Issue, Sue has met several young people who have lost their hair and done an interview for a girls’ magazine in Australia.
Sue also lectures on the importance of fiction in school.
Describe Sue in three adjectives? Passionate, individual and idealistic.
Describe her novels in three adjectives? Powerful, “beautifully written” (says Michael Morpurgo of THE WATERHOUSE GIRL) and challenging. TRACES made the top three in The People’s Book Prize 2012 and FRANK won bronze in The Wishing Shelf award 2013.