I really want to love William Joyce's stories of the Guardians of Childhood, but the narratives always seem to be missing that crucial something which would make the stories magic. Joyce's premise is an excellent start, and the Sandman's story is extremely promising, but his conflict with the King of Nightmares just doesn't jive. The potential coflict between these two characters is one that has been explored successfully by many other authors, so Joyce's riff essentially falls short of the mark instead of adding to the dream mythos. The only real saving grace in this book are Joyce's wonderful illustrations. Even without the story they are whimsical, imaginative, and have a perfect colour palette for a story of dreams. It's almost too bad that Joyce didn't just leave the story wordless, and given us a purely graphic novel, since a few more carefully chosen illustrations and we would have had a perfectly adequate book. ( )

Joyce gives us another back story to one of the figures of childhood mythology: the Sandman. The story is adequate, the villains are creepy, but the art: the art earns this book all its stars. Gorgeous.

Library copy. ( )

This is the second installment of William Joyce’s The Guardians of Childhood series. After crashing onto planet Earth from his shooting star and sleeping for a ten thousand nights, Sanderson Mansnoozie grants the Man in the Moon’s wish to help children when there cannot be a full moon. The Man in the Moon declares Sandy as “Sandman the first,” protector of dreams. THE SANDMAN is an absolutely delightful story about the little man who gives children dreams and chases all of their nightmares away. This is a great story to read for bedtime, as a read-aloud, or just for free read in class. There isn’t a major lesson to teach with this book, but children can take away the idea that nightmares are not real. The magnificent illustrations take the imagination into another world in this captivating read. ( )

I love this book! It tells the story of the First Sandman, charged by the Man in the Moon to chase away the Nightmares with his Dreamsand. The illustrations are beautiful, the story exquisite, and the execution magnificent. Well worth the read. I'll have this book in my classroom library. ( )

This is a wonderful tale of evil and good as they battle each other in the war of children's nightmares.

When the sandman discovers that if the moon is dark, all children have terrible nightmares, he solicits help from Sanderson Mansnoozie who battles the evil forces.

The illustrations are lush and very detailed. ( )