★★★★☆ A celebration of public libraries

Dreamers

Yuyi Morales

** spoiler alert **

One day in 1994 Yuyi Morales walked across the Bridge of the Americas from Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) to El Paso (USA) carrying her two-month-old son Kelly. She went to see Kelly's great-grandfather, thought to be dying, and to be with Kelly's father. She had intended to return to Mexico after her visit, but found herself obliged to move to the USA in order to become and remain a "permanent resident".

Suddenly, Morales was an immigrant with an infant son, unable to speak the language, unable to continue her former occupation of swimming instructor.

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.
Where we didn't need to speak, we only need to trust

It was a public library. As she says in this video,

In Mexico we do have public libraries, but we don't have libraries like the ones that exist here in the United States.

She was especially impressed by the children's section of the library, and of course, with an infant son, she was drawn to the picture books, which were like nothing she had ever seen before. She knew that she wanted to make books like that, and she did. She was obviously very successful. (Check out the list of awards!) This book tells the story I have just told you.

Like most children's picture books, it is short -- you can read the whole in a few minutes, if you don't linger on the pictures (which, of course, you will want to do).

Dreamers was originally written in English. There is a Spanish translation, Soñadores by Teresa Mlawer, which I also read -- it is equally good. In fact, it is so good that I initially thought Spanish the original language. Read either one.

Dreamers on Amazon

Goodreads review

Comments

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