The Island of Shadows

Davide Calì & Claudia Palmarucci

In their Little Guide to Nightmares Hunting, Dr Wallaby and his loyal assistant Sirio the dingo share all their best tricks to get rid of bad dreams. There are traps for gasping nightmares, big holes dug for the very threatening ones, cages for screaming nightmares and sticky foods for the swarming ones. They have a method for every type of nightmare!

One day, Dr Wallaby bumps into a very special case, at first sight insolvable: an empty, dull, profound, and motionless dream, the nightmare of the Tasmanian Tiger.
It doesn’t sound like any of the dreams that Dr Wallaby has studied so far, so he needs to consult his oldest manual. It turns out that the Tasmanian Tiger’s dream is in fact a non-dream, the dream of an extinct animal…

Populated by many Australian animals, Davide Calì’s book is both a funny guide for nightmare hunters as well as a reflection on the dramatic extinction of animal species. Brilliantly illustrated by Claudia Palmarucci, who in the final pages has illustrated many extinct and endangered animals with a style inspired by antique scientific manuals.