Dream Country

Praise

“Dream Country is gut wrenching and incredible.”—Sabaa Tahir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes

“This story, both sprawling and intimate by turns, is a miracle of construction, and Gibney fits its diasporic pieces the way a master should—with a keen eye, an open heart, a courageous spirit, and a sharp, sharp needle. This novel is a remarkable achievement.”—Kelly Barnhill, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medalist

“Gibney has masterfully woven together the histories of America and Africa through the multigenerational journeys of young people in search of home and self. Beautifully epic, timely, and outstanding in its breadth and scope, this story truly conveys what it means to be African American.”—Ibi Zoboi, author of American Street, National Book Award Finalist

★”A necessary reckoning.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred

★”Gibney blesses the reader with a marvelous literary tapestry of family, sacrifice, and dreams examining the lingering effects of slavery and racism in both the U.S. and Liberia. This powerful novel demonstrates how nonlinear history can be, ways the present is a consequence of the past, and that, though traumatized people can sometimes hurt others when trying to heal themselves, there’s nevertheless strength in hope that can keep us moving forward.”—Booklist, starred

★”[H]ighlights the inconsistencies between the beliefs a country projects to the world at large and the realities experienced by immigrants…. An excellent choice.”—SLJ, starred 

★”With riveting, lyrical prose, Gibney’s accomplished novel explores universal themes of home, family, power struggles, and endurance while demonstrating the liberating power of storytelling.—Publishers Weekly, starred 

★”[A]lthough each story could exist on its own to great effect, the ways they inform one another are historically grand and intimately detailed.”—BCCB, starred

“Dream Country asks big questions and exposes new histories as it digs into the complexities of what Gibney calls ‘the ongoing, spiraling history of the African-African American encounter’.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A smart, many layered, and sometimes challenging book for smart people.”—St. Paul Pioneer Press

“A vast and epic tale that explores racism, slavery, war, refugees, immigration, and what it means to be African-American as a whole.”—Bustle

“Powerful, educational, and eye-opening.”—Hello Giggles

“[A]n illumination of how humans end up treating each other cruelly and how they resist.”—The Horn Book

“Shannon Gibney has taken history and imagination and gelled them into a time machine. Here is tragedy and survival, struggle and love, rendered with precision and an empathy born of a writer who has experienced the ‘dream-loop’ of history. Sometimes a story can’t promise healing, or neat closure. Sometimes a story, even a magical one like this, is the necessary reopening of a wound.” —Bao Phi, award winning author of A Different Pond and Thousand Star Hotel

“Dream Country is a gift of storytelling, of culture, and of understanding for an America that needs this book desperately. Through stories woven of manhood and humanity, of growing up and growing into oneself, Gibney shows us how the worlds between us grow wider even as our world grows smaller. She takes us through time and space to find the heart of an imperfect home.”—Kao Kalia Yang, award winning author of The Latehomecomer  

“Dream Country is not just the story that needed to be told. In both its specificity and its universality, Shannon Gibney’s majestic text is the conversation that we needed to have. It is the multiple truths that we needed to explore. One certain way to ensure more powerful tomorrows is to fill our todays with words and ideas like hers.”—Cornelius Minor, teacher and author of We Got This: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be

“Gibney’s complex look at one family, told through a wide scope, is moving and unlike anything I have ever read before in YA. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Don’t miss it.—Teen Librarian Toolbox 

“Truly a tour de force and an outstanding example of what young adult literature can do when it stretches and takes risks and is in the talented, careful, passionate hands of a master writer.”—Angie Manfredi, Nerdy Book Club 

Winner of the Minnesota Book Award
A Bank Street College Best Book of the Year
A KARE 11 Sunrisers Bookclub Selection
A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
Kirkus Best YA Historical Fiction of the Year
A Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon Book
Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices List
Nerdy Book Club Award Winner