Sarah Beth Durst

The Girl Who Could Not Dream

ISBN: 9780544935266

The Girl Who Could Not Dream

a middle grade novel
by Sarah Beth Durst
available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / Clarion Books

Sophie's favorite place in the world is the hidden shop beneath her parent's bookstore where dreams are bought and sold to select and secretive strangers. Sophie is fascinated by dreams -- weird, scary, or magical -- in part because she has never had a single dream of her own.

When the shop's dreams are stolen and her mother and father go mysteriously missing, Sophie must unravel the truth to save her parents. Together with her best friend -- a wisecracking and fanatically loyal monster named Monster -- she must decide who to trust with her family's carefully-guarded secrets. Who will help them, and who will betray them?

Sarah Beth Durst deftly combines adventure, humor, and drama in a tale of unexpected friendship and dreams come true.

Read the first two chapters
(or download as a pdf)

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"Readers will not want to stop reading this quirky, fast-paced adventure until reaching its satisfactory, heartwarming conclusion... Funny, warm, and highly imaginative." -- Kirkus (Starred Review)

"This book is self-aware, playing with common fantasy tropes, thus reinvigorating the familiar underlying story of a loner having to learn to overcome her fears to save the ones she loves... A fun, fast read with broad appeal." -- School Library Journal (Starred Review)

"Boy, do readers have a treat in store for them! Funny, scary, and endlessly inventive, this is the kind of book I would have adored as a kid." -- Bruce Coville, author of Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher

"A perfect combination of adventure, humor, and pure imagination!" -- Jessica Day George, New York Times best-selling author of the Tuesdays at the Castle series

Read additional reviews.

Florida Sunshine State Young Readers Award 3rd Place Winner 2018-19
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Finalist 2016

Chosen as a Kirkus Best Middle-Grade Book of 2015 and an Amazon Best Book of November 2015!

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Download hi-res cover art from hardcover edition by Andrea Femerstrand.
Download hi-res cover art from paperback edition by Manuel Sumberac.

ISBN: 9780544935266

Hardcover Edition:

The Girl Who Could Not Dream

ISBN: 9780544464971

Also Available as an Audiobook:

The Girl Who Could Not Dream

The Girl Who Could Not Dream
Audio Edition

written by Sarah Beth Durst
narrated by Soneela Nankani
available now from Recorded Books

ASIN: B0161QOXIQ

International Editions:

Die Macht der verlorenen Träume
German Translation

available now from
Loewe Verlag

German ISBN: 978-3-7855-8583-2

Holčička, která nemohla snít
Czech Translation

available now from
Fragment / Albatros

Czech EAN: 9788025329078

The Girl Who Could Not Dream
Russian Translation

available now from
Eksmo

Russian ISBN: 9785041032074

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