Illustrator Blog: Yuyi Morales

By: Morgan Kelly
ELTL 504

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Who is Yuyi Morales? Where was she born? How did her childhood shape her decision to be an illustrator? How did their personal life inform the illustrative choices they make as an illustrator?

Yuyi Morales was born and raised in Veracruz, Mexico in 1968. As a young girl, she was always drawing and making up stories. Although recognized as a young artist by her family, her childhood tendencies did not create her future goals. Instead, she was an athlete who aspired to become a gym teacher. Through this process, Yuyi became a swimming coach where she met her husband and transitioned her life to the United States. For the last 25 years or so, Yuyi has been living in the state of California. 

Go Gale Database: Yuyi Morales

How did her childhood shape her decision to be an illustrator? How did their personal life inform the illustrative choices they make as an illustrator?

As she struggled with being away from her native lands and only knew a few words of English, she brought it upon herself to teach herself and her son English. Her motivation to learn English was sparked after she experienced a public library in San Francisco after she immigrated to the United States. The illustrations within the text helped her understand the language she needed to learn. Feeling inspired by the beautiful creations of authors, she pondered if she could be the creator of such beauty. Since she relied upon illustrations to understand most words within the text, she wondered if she create vivid illustrations with purpose, too. Soon enough, Yuyi became a student at UC Berkeley to study Children’s Literature, where she worked with other inspired authors that wrote children’s books. 

What literary awards has the illustrator won?

Yuyi Morales has been a receiver of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards for Picture Book in 2004 for Harvesting Hope: The story of Cesar Chevez. Yuiy was awarded the Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Illustration in 2004, 2008, 2014 for Niño Wrestles the World. She has also received a total of 6 Pura Belpré honors/awards. Last but not least, Yuyi has won the Caldecott Medal in 2015 for Viva Frida. 

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How did their personal life inform the illustrative choices they make as an illustrator? What was the author’s interest in literacy as a child? Did they enjoy reading? Did they dislike reading? 

“My work is a celebration of the things I used to love as a child: being together with my family, the food we love, the colors that were in our house and our clothes.” -Yuyi Morales

Yuyi Morales’ Blog

Yuyi grew up doodling next to her mother, as she watched her sew colorful stuffed animals to sell at the nearby market. Yuyi’s mother sewed everything, from her coat to her bedspread. Yuyi’s work ranges from comics to creating dolls to animate within her text, influenced by her mother’s passion for sewing. An overall presence of bright, full of texture illustrations are consistent in her work. 

After immigrating to the United States in 1994, Yuyi’s passion for picture books was influenced by the drive to create similarly beautiful and meaningful children’s books. She was even more so inspired to write stories that she could share with her son, teaching him her recent learnings of the English language. 

As a young girl, Yuyi states that children’s books made all the difference in her life especially the images and lessons. The presence of children’s books reappearing in her life as a mother created a significant bond with her son as they learned the new language together. Morales wanted to create a resource that other families could use to learn together and build connections between loved ones.

Publishers Weekly: Yuyi Morales

What is the illustrator’s process when working on a book? Why might children and young adults be drawn to their work? What element of their work might they be drawn to?

Yuyi uses puppet-like clay polymer figures, depicted by eye-catching, mixed media illustrations. Her work is inclusive of bright colorful patters and textures to combine fantasy and realism in her illustrations. Some of the books are dual-language, engaging those fluent in Spanish. Her illustrations are filled with rounded shapes and colors of sunset. After her arrival in the United States, she soon realized she began to miss her native lands in Mexico. Yuyi used her vibrant illustrations to bring back those colors and memories.

Unique Process: Yuyi begins by using a two surfaced table that allows her to place a reference image underneath where she paints on the glass above it, tracing the features. 

Yuyi’s creative process begins by writing in her journal that becomes filled with little drawings. These small drawings are turned into a mini storyboard from the thumbnails, leaving out details until the end. Her drawings are revised by her editors and eventually her sketches are brought to life once she decides how the book will be designed. Between the thumbnail and storyboard process, there are varying mediums she works with such as paints, photographs, puppets, plants, sticks or anything she finds in her house.

Morales’ process begins with reliving past memories, thoughts that keep her up at night, things that scare her or stimulate her curiosity. Within her process of developing storyline from lived experiences, she uses her connection to popular Mexican culture and her true identity as an immigrant. Her ideas are rooted in her childhood and adulthood experiences as a Mexican child turned American citizen. 

Morales aspires for her readers to see themselves as the heroes she depicts in he illustrations, that they are just as beautiful, amazing and powerful.

What textures does she use? What illustrative style is common across multiple picture books of this illustrator? 

“For me, the whole world is an art supply store!”
-Yuyi Morales

Overall, Yuyi’s style and mediums change throughout her illustrations. However, she keeps her focus of bright and powerful imagery consistent in her work. Yuyi uses two and three dimensional mediums within her illustrations. Her choices of art reflect her “Desire to weave together everyday life and imagination.” A crowd favorite, Viva Frida consists of a combination of photographs and painting. Morales created the dolls herself and took pictures of them to really give the illustration true texture. El Niño maintains Morales’ bright imagery and bi-lingual text, however is more in a comic style. Her illustrations mainly focus on creating a visual narrative while incorporating many depictions of family. In Dreamers, Morales used scanned meaningful materials to display her true identify as a Mexican native, as well as including ink drawings. Yuyi describes her artistic style as “Whatever excites me.” She does not have set materials that she uses. Her style is a reflection for her passion in painting and photography. 

Illustrator Spotlight: Yuyi Morales

Scholastic: Yuyi Morales Shares Her Dreams

How does the texture and style motivate the target population?   

Students are drawn to her bold use of illustrations of characters and settings that use powerful colors to catch the reader’s eye. Students with an eye for drawings and three dimensional forms will be drawn to investigate the different source of mediums the illustrator uses. For the children reading this story, the animations bring the story to life, helping them understand through visual significance. Older students and even adults will take away powerful meaning or purpose of the Morales’ words and symbolism in pictures. ESL Children who speak spanish as their first language will benefit from the use of dual language text to understand the concepts of Yuyi’s story. Morales finds that her illustrations and text allow readers to make sense of the world and emotionally move them by tapping into a topic that they resonate or connect with. Morales keeps children’s emotions in mind while creating her art, going much deeper than the surface. 

Why might this illustrators work be relevant in the literacy classroom?

Yuyi believes there are so many families that share her similar experience of immigration, feeling out of place and adjusting to a new environment. Her writing reflects her drive to bring communities and families together just like it did for her and her son. She aspires to strengthen bonds between adults and children by sharing her experiences. Morales is determined for children to connect to her books, wanting to let children know that she has a story they can relate to. She makes it a point to have her readers be “seen” in this world. Whether they were past immigrants themselves or not, she strives to make children aware that they have the gift of storytelling that we all need to hear. Yuyi creates stories like Dreamers, that gives children a chance to relate to times of immigration or experiences as a young Mexican-American child. The illustrator focuses on what students need at each stage of their development, using their emotional and intellectual development as her reference in her work.

First Book

Online Reviews:

Amazon Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

SELECTED picture book: Dreamers

How would you teach this text to students in a particular age population of your choice?

Elementary levels, 4^th to 5^th graders would be analyzing the different ways in which Yuyi expresses meaning through illustration. As a class, Yuyi Morales would be introduced as our author of the week. Through videos and clear explanation of Morales’ passion for creating children’s books, we would discuss her love for illustrating. Following this discussion, I would offer students to bring in picture books of their choice that have resonated with them. These books should be relatable to the student’s and be meaningful, through the text or illustrations, in some way. When the student’s bring in books that they have a connection to, we will share with partners as to why and how that book sparks a connection with the reader. Students will continue to find meaningful characters, lessons and relatable material for further analyzing, as they will be creating a spin-off of their chosen book. Following this activity, the students would be read Dreamers, following a discussion of how the author found her true passions in admiring other’s creations of work. While discussing Yuyi’s background, we would touch upon how Yuyi’s upbringing was similar or different from our own. Student would be free to express their similarities or differences relating to immigration, citizenship or the importance of a library. To help us solidify the meaning of the story, a video of Yuyi will be played to synthesize the information for the students. 
(Youtube: Yuyi Morales, Dreamer)
After watching, students will better understand not only the storyline of Dreamers but recognize that it is based off someone’s true life events. Within the video, Morales makes it clear that anyone can create their own story in any different ways, with words or just illustrations. As students benefit from additional read alouds of stories, we would read it a couple more times and the students would be free to analyze the illustrations up close. The next activity would be based upon the quote from Dreamers.

“Someday we will become

Something we haven’t even

Yet imagined.

But right now….

We are stories.

We are two languages.

We are lucha.

We are resilience.

We are hope.

We are dreamers,

Soñadores of the world.

We are Love Amor Love.”

-Yuyi Morales

Using this quote, we would analyze it as a group and discuss the meaning behind it. We will discuss the importance of Morales being a “dreamer” any how each one of us can related. Using her words, we will engage in an illustrative activity that will spark our ideas to write. Students will watch another clip that shows Morales demonstrating her wide range of “Live Art”. Within the video, she uses calligraphy ink with needle and thread to create her animations in Dreamers. Students will get to see Morales’ process up close.

Yuyi Morales Live Art Drawing

After watching the video, we would discuss how the illustrator uses non-traditional material to create beautiful illustrations. Students will choose an overarching topic/passion/theme that sparks a connection or is meaningful to them from their chosen book. This relates to how Morales’ was inspired to create from the authors and illustrators she found in the library after she arrived in United States. The class tables would be filled with materials in which the students will be given a small booklet to begin their illustrations, influenced by Yuyi Morales’ unique way of expressing ideas. Students will be given the freedom of using their own materials from home, various textures, colors, and patterns to convey their meaningful idea or lesson from their chosen children’s book. Students would then revisit their clips of art and place meaning in their illustrations with the use of dual language text and dialogue, like Yuyi does after she creates her illustrations.

*For example, I would model to the students how The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein has much meaning to me. Since a child, my mother had read me the story, encouraging and teaching me how to be a generous, giving individual. Using this meaningful text, I would take the characters such as the tree and create an illustration using various textures and bright imagery to place significance and emphasis on the giving tree. I would use some dialogue from the story or create new dialogue, maybe creating a character for my mother and myself. The end product would be a spin-off of a meaningful, inspiration story filled with bright colors and my own drawings, as Yuyi was inspired by the texts she connected with. 

What visual literacy strategies would you employ to support students as they read and made meaning of the book?
What other texts might you pair with this picture book?

Students will be using the inspiring text, words and videos of Yuyi Morales to visually represent another text that provides meaning to them. They would be able to revisit the work of Morales through copies of her books or online resources/videos/interviews. Students would also be introduced with other children’s books relating to immigration. Texts such as La Frontera, by Deborah Mills. The text is about a boy and his father who made a journey from Mexico across the border to United States, soon to become a citizen and learn a new language. It is important to represent to children that many texts are based on true life events and how not everyone’s experience was the same. Another story, Lailah’s Lunchbox focuses on an immigrant student’s struggles to conform with the society around her that is very unlike her past native land traditions and experiences. 

How might you bridge connections to other curricular activities and expectations?

Student’s understandings of the dreamers will be supported in other content area such as Social Studies. Student will analyze other realistic immigration stories from children. Their understanding will be furthered through the investigation of primary sources. Students will be expected to bring their understandings of immigration and relate it to Yuyi Morales’ story of Dreamers.