Sweet Dreams Fuel / Literature

• Every. Dr. Seuss. Book. Ever. Even with the darkest books, the funny books and the lovable characters can make any reader feel like a toddler again. Stand outs being The Cat in the Hat books, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, Oh, the Places You'll Go!, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and Horton Hears a Who!.
• Curious George is about a curious monkey who lives with his friend, The Man with the Yellow Hat. This book series involves George going though curious adventures that will make you feel cuddly and warm inside.
• Clifford the Big Red Dog is about a dog that continuously grew because of his owner's love for him. It might be a bit outlandish, but it's still very cute. If you want a book series that is about a sweet cuddly big dog, then this is for you!
• Dragon Bones: Where the novel isn't Nightmare Fuel or Tear Jerker, it is this. There is a horribly mistreated stallion - who, after his horrible owner dies, gets to be taken care of by a nice, gentle young man, who introduces him to a nice mare. There is a mute girl ... who is under the protection of the local friendly ghost. Said friendly ghost is an immortal slave, magically bound to serve whoever the rightful owner of the castle is at the moment... but worry not, he has recently been inherited by a kind young man who feels very protective towards him. Ward, who is the young man in all those above examples, has a protection instinct towards anyone and everything that's smaller and weaker than him, and as he's a giant of a man, that's a lot of people. And animals. And supernatural creatures. Most fanfics concentrate on the heartwarming aspects of the work, making them pure Sweet Dreams Fuel.
• The True Companions bond between all of the main characters in Dracula. They're all mutually supportive and caring, even Lucy's technically-rejected suitors. Special mention goes to the wholesome relationship between Mina and Jonathan.
• Spring Heeled Jack, a half-graphic, half-novel about Victorian London's Batman as he rescues scruffy orphans with trinkets and takes on Mack the Knife himself, wittily and with great aplomb. When Philip Pullman does sweet, he does sweet. Makes you totally forget the real life Spring Heeled Jack was a terrifying rapacious abomination of Hell!
• Lloyd Alexander's The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. Wise without being smarmy. Fun without being sugary. Harrowing without being Nightmare Fuel.
  • The cangue wasn't Nightmare Fuel? Or Li Kwang's adventure? Or the thirsty sword? But the paintbrush, kite and flute made up for a lot of it.
  • On the subject of Lloyd Alexander, The Arkadians does it for me. Retellings of myths? A truly happy ending? Rainbows? Can it get any better?
  • Arguably also The Cat Who Wished to be a Man. It's a very innocent outlook on humanity, and while some of it is depressing and frightening, there are enough genuinely witty or sweet moments to make it worth it.
  • A beautiful example of Earn Your Happy Ending from the above author. Taran and Eilonwy have been through danger and distress, fought battles and lost friends. They've got Belligerent Sexual Tension up the wazoo, they've nearly lost one another multiple times, and yet, at the end, they stuck together. Despite all the bad stuff that's happened, the ending causes major feels every single time.
    And so they lived many happy years, and the promised tasks were accomplished. Yet long afterward, when all had passed away into distant memory, there were many who wondered whether King Taran, Queen Eilonwy, and their companions had indeed walked the earth, or whether they had been no more than dreams in a tale set down to beguile children. And, in time, only the bards knew the truth of it.
• 14,000 things to be happy about by Barbara Ann Kipper. It's exactly what it says on the cover.
• Audiobooks of A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh stories. A kind, grandfatherly voice narrating the adventures of the scatterbrained Pooh and his friends... The animated adaptations are good as well, but nothing beats the original stories.
  • Even just reading the books aloud is wonderful! Nothing is as adorable as reading about Pooh describing the lunch he packed while a series of little pictures show him packing said lunch. And it comes with some inspiring wisdom too.
• Paddington Bear. You will never look at marmalade without a nostalgic smile ever again. Kind of like when you open a jar of Play-Doh.
• Pretty much anything by Diana Wynne Jones can qualify as this. Slice of Life stories of friendship, romance and teamwork made interesting with magic!
  • Though you might wanna avoid Hexwood, Charmed Life, The Time of the Ghost, The Homeward Bounders, Dogsbody, Eight Days of Luke... They are totally amazing books, just not exactly what you'd call cheerful. Actually, there are almost no books by her that are completely free of nightmare fuel. Still, that's what makes her awesome. You read about not nice things happening to nice people and end up with a warm fluffy feeling when it all works out. Only, like in a few of the titles above, sometimes it doesn't.
• The entirety of Bridge of Birds, especially the ending.
• Terrence Real's books (which sort of straddle the divide between Literature and Real Life) are made of Sweet Dreams Fuel. This editor is particularly reminded of a retelling of "Echo and Narcissus" in How Can I Get Through to You?
• Oddly enough, Melina Marchetta's On the Jellicoe Road, despite being a pretty much non-stop Tear Jerker (or maybe because of?) has this by the bucketload.
• Brian Floca's Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11. Yes, it's a picture book for little kids, but out of ALL the books that came out for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, this one captured the beauty and wonder the best. ESPECIALLY the last picture, with the family running outside to play with the little toy rocket and the moon in the background.
• The Secret Garden: A tale about the The Power of Friendship and the magic of nature. Its just great to see Mary and Colin enjoy life more and more each day with Dickon's help. Also applies to the 1993 movie and its beautiful soundtrack.
• Dinotopia. Especially the very first one. A utopia of poets, writers, artists, and scientists? With friendly dinosaurs? Brilliantly illustrated? Oh yes.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. We've followed Arthur Dent through so very much, from his house (and subsequently his planet) being demolished, going insane, and being given more reasons to say "So this is it. We're going to die" than any man should have in his lifetime. And in a few months, he recovers his planet (and subsequently his home) and finds true love with someone so right for him that she even makes the idea of leaving Earth once more bearable. It's remarkably sweet and somehow feels right to the point where the narrator can concede the point without losing the wit or the trademark simile-ing everything to death.
• Connie Willis's Bellwether and To Say Nothing of the Dog. Particularly the second - all her trademark screwball-comedy dialogue, a charming homage to Victorian and Edwardian literature, and even in the darker bits, there's a sense that everything will turn out OK. Also, fluffy kittens.
• P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories. They're just so innocent and silly that it's impossible not to smile through the whole thing.
  • Pretty much everything by Wodehouse, really.
• Go break out the stash of books you read as a kid. Read one of your old Junie B. Jones books. You're welcome.
• Doctor Dolittle. A man who does what he loves (talking to and helping animals) without caring about what other people think or how much money he earns doing so. His pets are all completely endearing, from Dab Dab the housekeeper to the parrot who first teaches Dolittle the animal's language.
• The Little Prince. "You only see well with your heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes". Brings you happy tears.
• As mentioned in the Films section, Death from Discworld is absolutely adorable — he doesn't quite understand humans, but he finds them extremely fascinating, and, in the end, he really cares about people, working hard to protect them from the Auditors.
  • Pretty much everything by Terry Pratchett can fall into this category, but ESPECIALLY his books for kids. Oh, and the final paragraph of 'Good Omens' (co-authored with Neil Gaiman).
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, if read with the original illustrations, has plenty of funny moments and the pictures are beautiful to look at.
• The Silver Key. Yes, even HP Lovecraft can induce this. Mainly due to this story's lack of eldritch abominations, or the fact that it's a story about a man finally being able to physically go to the world of his dreams, and become a kid again. No Outer Gods or Great Old Ones to lure him into a trap, just straightforward re-entering your dreams. It seems against every other thing the man wrote, which is why it's sweet dreams fuel.
• The Milly Molly Mandy stories.
• Just about anything by Edward Lear, the Victorian author and artist famous for his nonsense poetry. His greatest hits include The Owl and the Pussycat, The Jumblies and The Quangle Wangle's Hat, as well as the wealth of limericks he wrote, which continue to entertain to this day.
• Millions of people around the world will agree that, on the whole, The Lord of the Rings is not only a beautiful High Fantasy epic packed to the brim with amazing, 3D characters and plenty of awesomeness and badassery, but quite possibly the greatest form of escapism you can get. Just open The Fellowship Of The Ring and immediately you'll be partying with Bilbo, fighting the Nazgul with Aragorn, defeating the Balrog with Gandalf, chilling out with Legolas and Gimli, accompanying Frodo and Sam to Mordor and dancing with Tom Bombadil.
  • This quote helps to get through some pretty rough days:
    “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
• Any book made by Rosemary Wells, such as the Max and Ruby series, Voyage To The Bunny Planet, Timothy Goes to School, and the Yoko series. They will make you smile with their cute illustrations and nostalgic overtones.
• The "Cozy Mystery", by its very nature. They're a peculiar sub-category of mystery novels written by fans of the genre who want all of the wonder and satisfaction of a good mystery without the inevitable sex and violence and tragedy. Their mantra is essentially, "There's enough negativity in the world already, and even adults need to kick back with a simple, pain-free story every once in a while". The result? An entire Sub-Genre of mystery stories deliberately written to be as fun and happy-go-lucky as humanly possible, with an absolute minimum of death. Like "the pulps" before them, "the cozies" have managed to acquire a whole list of oddly specific genre conventions that seem calculated to give readers the warm and fuzzies. To elaborate:
  • Animal companions are an absolute necessity, and many cozies feature friendly cats and dogs as narrators. A novel about a mystery-solving cat running for President is par for the course.
  • Professional cops and private detectives are a no-no, as the hero of a cozy must be a good-hearted everyman (or everywoman) with a down-to-earth hobby or occupation, like a chef or a librarian.
  • Even when a murder kicks off the plot, it must happen in as bloodless a manner as possible (poisoning and defenestration are the preferred methods), and it can be nothing more than a plot device. Not even a murder can rob a cozy of its inherent sweetness.
  • A cozy must take place in an idyllic small-town setting, with as many lovably quirky characters as possible. Solving a mystery is the perfect bonding experience for neighbors who love each other.
  • Though the world of a cozy doesn't have the slightest whiff of demons, monsters, or the occult, ghosts frequently appear. They're invariably friendly, and always happy to offer helpful clues to our intrepid heroes. In addition, some heroines are witches, who use their powers to help other people.
  • It's considered perfectly normal to include recipes in a cozy novel, since nothing gets the reader into the spirit of a cozy like munching on something sweet.
• Harry Potter. No matter how sad, dark, or scary the books get, there's a reason so many people consider this series to be their childhoods, and there's also a reason that, in spite of all the danger the characters get into, wanting to go to Hogwarts is pretty much a universal experience among bookworms. These books are so much more than a fantasy adventure series (though it is exceedingly good at being that). They're about friendship, bravery, tolerance, justice, and, above all, The Power of Love.
  J.K. Rowling: Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.
• The Stormlight Archive, the entire series is a massive Reconstruction of the High Fantasy genre.
  Life Before Death
  Strength Before Weakness
  Journey Before Destination
• Little Women is about four sisters in their cozy New England home facing trials as they grow up, but themes of love and family and forgiveness are very big. There's a lot of wholesome, enjoyable activities the March sisters do, like going to dances, sewing together, having wonderful Christmases with each other. Every girl works hard to be kind to others, and while there are one or two big Tearjerkers, you'll likely find the ending very, very Heartwarming.
• The Enchanted Forest Chronicles are very lighthearted satirical books about classic fairy tales and the tropes they created. Except not a single bit is mean-spirited, every book has the happy ending the reader is rooting for, and it's got a lot of humor.
• Enid Blyton's Noddy series is focused on the daily activies and life of the titular wooden toy boy in a world inhabited by living toys. Toytown and Toyland itself is very colorful and carrying a cheery and laidback tone. The most evident is Noddy's Toyland Adventures, the 1970s series, and audio adaptations narrated by Blyton during the 1950s.

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