We are resilience. We are hope. We are dreamers.
Yuyi Morales brought her hopes, her passion, her strength, and her stories with her, when she came to the United States in 1994 with her infant son. She left behind nearly everything she owned, but she didn't come empty-handed.
From the author-illustrator of Bright Star, Dreamers is a celebration of making your home with the things you always carry: your resilience, your dreams, your hopes and history. It's the story of finding your way in a new place, of navigating an unfamiliar world and finding the best parts of it. In dark times, it's a promise that you can make better tomorrows.
This lovingly-illustrated picture book memoir looks at the myriad gifts migrantes bring with them when they leave their homes. It's a story about family. And it's a story to remind us that we are all dreamers, bringing our own strengths wherever we roam. Beautiful and powerful at any time but given particular urgency as the status of our own Dreamers becomes uncertain, this is a story that is both topical and timeless.
The lyrical text is complemented by sumptuously detailed illustrations, rich in symbolism. Also included are a brief autobiographical essay about Yuyi's own experience, a list of books that inspired her (and still do), and a description of the beautiful images, textures, and mementos she used to create this book.
A parallel Spanish-language edition, Soñadores, is also available.
Winner of the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award!
A New York Times / New York Public Library Best Illustrated Book
A New York Times Bestseller
Recipient of the Flora Stieglitz Strauss Award
A 2019 Boston Globe - Horn Book Honor Recipient
An Anna Dewdney Read Together Honor Book
Named a Best Book of 2018 by Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, NPR, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, Salon.com-- and many more!
A Junior Library Guild selection
A Eureka! Nonfiction Honoree
A Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon title
A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year
A CLA Notable Children's Book in Language Arts
Selected for the CBC Champions of Change Showcase
Born in Xalapa, Mexico, where she currently resides, Yuyi Morales lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she still maintains close relations with booksellers and librarians. Professional storyteller, dancer, choreographer, puppeteer, and artist, she has won the prestigious Pura Belpré Award for Illustration five times, for Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book (2003), Los Gatos Black on Halloween (2006), Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book (2008), Niño Wrestles the World (2013), and Viva Frida (2014), also a Caldecott Honor Book.
★ "Many books about immigration describe the process of making new friends and fitting in; this one describes what it’s like to become a creative being in two languages, and to learn to love in both. 'We are two languages./ We are lucha./ We are resilience./ We are hope.'"—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
★ "An immigrant's tale steeped in hope, dreams, and love. . . . Details in the art provide cultural markers specific to the U.S., but the story ultimately belongs to one immigrant mother and her son. Thanks to books and stories (some of her favorites are appended), the pair find their voices as 'soñadores of the world.' A resplendent masterpiece."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
★ "The narrative text is poetic and full of emotion. . . . the mixed-media illustrations are breathtaking, created through painting, drawing, photography, and embroidery. The joyous imagination and intricacy of each illustration will make readers of all ages explore them further. . . . "—Booklist, Starred Review
"Dreamers is a paean to libraries, to reading and writing and creativity, a value statement I endorse wholeheartedly. Dreamers aims for the glorious and the poetic; it's big, passionate, crammed with detail."—The New York Times Book Review
★ "The magical art marries the succinct and powerful narrative in a resplendent celebration of literacy, language, and the transformative power of the picture book form . . . This excellent memoir encapsulates the fears, hopes, and dreams that come along with immigrating to a new place . . . A timely and much-needed selection."—School Library Journal, Starred Review
★ "Every page of Dreamers vibrates with energy, depicting the emotions, the turmoil, the stress and the joy that come with creating a new life."—Shelf Awareness, Starred Review
★ "The gently hopeful text offers its best optimism when rooted in Morales’ own experience. The immersive magical reality of the art is the real glory here; the mixed-media illustrations, including acrylic paint, drawing, and bits of collage, are full-bleed spreads that depict the library as a milieu every bit as startling and novel to the speaker as the U.S. itself."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Starred Review
★ "A wise book and, to praise it in its own words, 'resplendent,' an eloquent vision of the 'resilience' and 'hope' of the 'dreamers, soñadores of the world.'"—The Horn Book Magazine, Starred Review
"Morales tells, through illustrations that seem to dance and sing, the story of crossing borders on a bridge of language with her young son. Together they discover picture books and public libraries, and the gifts they brought with them — open hearts, art, poetry and stories — blossom."—The Washington Post, Best Books of 2018
“This beacon of a picture book, which illustrates the story of the author's own journey to the United States with her two-month-old son, emphatically asserts that immigrants belong in this country, no matter the political rhetoric that claims the opposite. Morales verbally encapsulates the range of emotions that arise on such a journey in text that is concise and intelligible to young readers. Visually, the intricately handcrafted mixed media elements overlaid on atmospheric backgrounds lend a sense of beauty to even the most trying and disconsolate moments of the story. Another award-worthy tour-de-force from a storyteller in her prime.”
