The “Terrible Ideas” of Yuyi Morales: A Guest Piece

Today we are honored to host Caldecott Honoree/New York Times bestseller Yuyi Morales as our guest poster. To know the world of children’s literature is to know Yuyi and her work. Enjoy.

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In 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I published my book, Bright Star, and its Spanish version, Lucero. This was my second book on the theme of immigration, and it was not easy to make. My previous book, Dreamers, told the immigration story of my then-infant son and me. This time, I wanted to explore the devastating impact of immigration policies on families, children, animals, and our environment. Isn’t that a terrible idea for a picture book for young children?

In Bright Star, a fawn follows her mother through the borderlands as they search for necessities like food, water, shade, warmth, and shelter. I wanted Bright Star to be something of an allegory for the family separation that many children suffer at the borderlands, but I also wanted Bright Star to tell children in pain that they are seen and their stories matter. I wanted these children to know that when we see them, they are not alone.

In the days after Bright Star’s publication, my editor, Neal Porter, asked me if I’d given any thought to what my next book would be about. By then, the allure of another “terrible idea” had only grown stronger in my heart/mind. As I wrote constant notes in my journal, a fire grew in me.

I had a guiding question, a nagging question, a question that made me stare at things on the streets, a question that kept me awake at night: when you are little in front of a big world, how do you make changes for the well-being of everybody?

I’ve lived and seen enough to know the danger of expecting a single, almighty solution for any one question. With that in mind, I began searching for a universe of answers—or, if I say in a rebel way, for a universe of stories.

Little Rebels is my terrible idea of a story about a cluster of children and animal creatures, who go on an adventure of transforming and playing with tadpoles, only to find that their lagoon has lost its water. While this story might read as fantasy, our reality is the pillaging of our rivers, lagoons, and the destruction of our seas. 2021 was also the year when the Laguna del Farallón, a lagoon I had visited as a child with my family in Mexico, completely lost its water. When locals looked for the reason behind this loss of water, they found that climate change, as well as illegal water exploitation, had destroyed this beautiful lagoon that provided a way of life for so many.

So, why tell this story to children? I have also learned through the years that pretending that nothing terrible ever happens ignores the experiences and identities of many children. But even where terrible things happen, there can be light, collective wisdom, and triumph, and we cannot obscure these efforts of our communities and readers either.

Now, would you like to hear some of the little things that have sustained me while I wrote and illustrated this “terrible idea”, Little Rebels?

Here are three:

1. How shall we begin? Yes, I had ideas, and I wrote them down on pieces of paper, my journal, and still, I had difficulty even starting to tell the story. I had a conversation with Rai, my friend and therapist, and she reminded me that there are infinite ways to do things. Thinking there is only one way of doing anything is a form of inherited confinement, she said to me. Here are some ways I explore to begin telling this story:

With a song.

With a scare.

With drawing.

Telling a story about the past.

Asking a question.

Talking about how it feels not being able to begin.

2. Making Little Rebels took four years of imagining and exploring before I could bring it to life in a book. Has it happened to you that the bigger your expectations, the more difficult a task becomes?

When I was making this book, I wanted so much from this story. I wanted it to be an incredible and poetic tale, and I wanted it to be a story that could be funny and that would pose important questions, and I wanted it to make readers smile and burst with joy, and…

I often found myself stuck in front of the blank page.

I learned to trust my body when I got stuck. I made it a practice to begin with small movements, to breathe and grasp the pencil or type a letter, any letter on the keyboard, and then stop if needed, and make a pass with my arms, or close my eyes and listen to my body. We have infinite wisdom in us; sometimes we just need to take a walk to visit our heart and ask her what she wants to do next.

3. Do you want to know what turns a story into a magnificent tale? I want to know too! And while I don’t have an answer for this question, I have lots of stories for answers, so here is a last one for today:

Last year, as I was still figuring out how to make a book that explored the issue of being little in front of the big world, people in the community of La Mancha, Veracruz, Mexico, where I now live, began seeing signs that something big and new was being constructed in what used to be an agricultural property where a creek runs during the rainy season. Soon, we learned that this construction was a massive chicken farm where 320,000 chickens would be raised and transported to be killed every 50 days. The alarms of the community went up! The creek that runs along one of the boundaries of this farm flows into our beloved Lagoon of La Mancha! We are fighting a battle to protect our community from the industrial contamination that will destroy our lagoon and the environment that it sustains. It was in the midst of our lucha that I gave the last touches to the final art of Little Rebels.

With this, I want to share a realization I learned from my friends in this journey of caring for each other:

What turns a story into a magnificent tale is the linking of the story’s values to our lives and our journeys. Simple stories become our companions and our means of learning when they are connected to what is most important to us.

Now, I have a question for you. Si, para ti!

What do you do to stay connected with what’s important to your heart?

There is your story.

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Yuyi Morales was born in Xalapa, Mexico, where she currently resides. She is a Caldecott Honoree and a repeated winner of the prestigious Pura Belpré Medal for Illustration, among other honors. Her titles include Dreamers (A New York Times bestseller), Niño Wrestles the World, Viva Frida, and Bright Star. She lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she still maintains close connections.

Thanks to Yuyi for this piece and to Sara DiSalvo and the team at Holiday House for helping to put it together.

Filed under: Guest Posts