This subtle and beautiful picture book faces fears in an extraordinary way. A young lad tears two holes in the cloth of dreams that his grandmother made for him when he was a baby. The cloth protects him from 'the dark night things', but the tears mean that dark things can get through - which they do when he spends his first night at his grandmother's old house. The nightmares are truly terrible, and when the boy wakes, he must face the darkness to get to his gran's room so she can mend the cloth for him. When she sends him to the roof to get threads from the sun and moon, he is terrified, but he faces his fear and gets the required threads which grandmother uses to mend the cloth. She tells him, though, that he no longer needs it as he has 'forged his own courage'. The depth, mystery and magic of the dream-like illustrations are matched perfectly with the lyrical writing. A book to treasure.