Gideon McGee's Dream

Gideon McGee, unlike Jonas of Lois Lowry’s, The Giver, longs not for the perfect world, but for a world of total fairness. Fourteen year old Gideon is the quintessential woe-is-me teenager until the day he falls through the ice of a frozen pond while trying to save his sister, Prudence. Gideon is like many youngsters (and adults) who wonder why the world is put together in such a way that it is so emotionally difficult to navigate. He blames bad luck, others and an unfair world for all his misfortunes. Gideon saves his sister, who rushes for help, but he sinks to the bottom of the pond. During the seven minutes that Gideon lies in a state of suspended animation before being rescued his mind goes on an adventure. He travels with a companion his psyche conjures for him and passes through black holes that connect to other universes and some very strange worlds. Each world is designed to show him why his world works the way it does and that his world is already the perfect world. Zacharaias, Gideon’s companion, is the tour guide and together they explore the Land of Khidr, the Land of the Gatekeeper, the World of No Opposites, the World of What is Good and What is Bad, the Land of the Tree Clingers and finally the Incredible Shrinking Planet. Gideon’s adventure changes him irrevocably. He is saved from the icy waters and recovers to find the world he left is a different place, not because it has changed physically, but because he has changed psychologically.