MEET BAKHTIN!
The Secrets of Droon, In the City of Dreams by Tony Abbott
"Eric stepped over to the mirror. At first he saw only mist. Looking more closely, he began to make out tall buildings and domes, canals and bridges, and streets paved with stones of different colors. A city? A wild city!"
-In the City of Dreams, page 21
"Inside Neal found his friends gathered around the magic mirror. 'Guys,' he said, 'you totally won't believe who I saw...'
'Hush,' Pasha whispered. 'The magic mirror. It's not good. Eric...'
The mirror showed Galen, Max, and Relna in the royal bedchamber. On the bed beside them lay Eric, his face now no more than a ghostly shadow on the pillow."
-In the City of Dreams, page 55
This magic mirror plays a large role in the novel In the City of Dreams, by Tony Abbott. Many items in this novel are enchanted or magical in some way, that make them quite out of the ordinary. The items are like 'inversions of reality', or the opposite of what these items would do in our normal world. Carnivalesque texts often have items which are inversions of reality in them; they stretch our level of thinking and encourage us to think outside of the box.
The magical mirror does exactly the opposite of what it would do in real life, challenging our perception of our own reality. This is what makes this text carnivalesque!
OTHER carnivalesque things to consider in the book In the City of Dreams:
1. The role children take on as the saviors of the world (in reality, adults are usually in control)
2. The magic, invisibility carpet
3. The environment of Droon itself: Magic! Dragons! Fantasy!
