Caldecott-winning author/illustrator Yuyi Morales's (Viva Frida) newest book, Dreamers, begins with the beautiful lines, "I dreamed of you, then you appeared. Together we became Amor--Love--Amor. Resplendent life, you and I." A double-page spread shows a woman and baby, both with outstretched arms, reaching for each other across the textured paper's blank space. Surrounding them is vibrant plant life, flowers and leaves that look as if they were stitched into the paper itself."One day we bundled gifts in our backpack, and crossed a bridge outstretched like the universe." The mother dons the pack--tiny yet overflowing with beloved items from home--and carries the baby across the bridge. There are mountains behind them, birds and butterflies all around them and rushing water below. "Adiós Corazón"--the mountains are gray, the bridge is gray, the birds are gray but the mother's multi-colored skirt shines with brilliant color.
A misty city greets them, bats flying through the night sky, a giant moon framing the travelers. "And when we made it to the other side, thirsty, in awe, unable to go back, we became immigrants. Migrantes, you and I." This new place welcomes them "in words unlike those of [their] ancestors" and their confusion and fear are written backwards in the clouds above the city: "Say something"; "Speak English"; "What?" The mother and child stumble through life in their new city, "[u]nable to understand, and afraid to speak," making "lots of mistakes."
"You and I became caminantes. Thousands and thousands of steps we took around this land, until the day we found... a place we had never seen before. Suspicious. Improbable. Unbelievable. Surprising. Unimaginable." Three full-page turns are allotted to the discovery of the library, the awe, then wariness, then joy clear on the mother's face. Each of the three pages is filled to the brim with books; the space itself changes from being cold-looking and confusing to an imaginative dreamscape, the child wrapped lovingly in his mother's arms as both sit engrossed in the book in her lap. The next double-page spread mimics the very first, the mother and baby reaching across the blank space to receive a glowing, colorful gift: a library card.
Dreamers is Yuyi Morales's own immigration story. To create this book, she "painted with acrylics and drew on paper with ink and brushes and a nib pen that once belonged to Maurice Sendak," as well as photographing and scanning "many things"--the floor of her studio, traditional Mexican fabrics, her son's childhood drawings--to "give the book life." She is most certainly successful. Every page of Dreamers vibrates with energy, depicting the emotions, the turmoil, the stress and the joy that come with creating a new life. "Someday," the book finishes, "we will become something we haven't even yet imagined. But right now.... We are stories. We are two languages.... We are Love Amor Love." --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: Yuyi Morales tells her own immigration story in the glorious, emotional Dreamers.