Zafira and the Goldfish

Zafira is back for another exciting and educational dream adventure, the follow-up to Zafira and the Birds.

Twelve-year-old Zafira Panos is a lucid dreamer who used to love planning her dreams and transporting herself to various faraway and intriguing art historical periods taught by her beloved grandmother. But after a blowout with her best friend Vivian, Greek American Zafira is convinced her unusual skill is another reason she's becoming a social pariah. But, like it or not, Zafira needs to escape her problems. This time, she plans herself to early-twentieth-century Paris, where she meets Marguerite Matisse (the teenage daughter of Henri Matisse, aka The Goldfish), through which Zafira also meets the one and only Pablo Picasso.

In true Zafira dream fashion, blunders, mishaps, and lots of adventure ensue. There's a menacing harlequin who keeps popping up to threaten her, not to mention lessons from Gertrude Stein, a talking dog, anthropomorphized Cubism, unexpected twists and turns, and even an interactive game for the reader. In her latest dream journey-which jumps between 1908 and 1913-Zafira sees what Parisian life is like and discovers that Matisse and Picasso are full of contradictions and far from perfect. Nevertheless, by way of their dynamic relationship and challenging rivalry, as well as her budding friendship with Marguerite, Zafira starts to piece together her own real-life failings as a friend and sees how vulnerability and honesty are fundamental in building and keeping any strong and healthy friendship.