A Collective Healing with Yuyi Morales

Yuyi Morales, author illustrator of Little Rebels (Neal Porter Books), joins Matthew to talk about the voices of people fighting to protect our world, our rights, and our people.

Listen along:

About the book: Little Rebels by Yuyi Morales. Published by Neal Porter Books.

Do you know a little rebel? Do you want to be a rebel, too? A powerful new picture book from Caldecott Honoree Yuyi Morales, creator of Dreamers and Bright Star.

A New York Times-NYPL Best Illustrated Children’s Book!

Little rebels have a way of finding each other. When these three youngsters come together while playing outside, they feel the pull—these are their people. 

Little rebels ask questions. They use language to shape the world, and when no words are right, they make up new ones. They imagine, trust their intuition, and aren’t ashamed to change their minds. 

Playing together in good times leads to working together through trouble. When the local lagoon dries up and a bird friend is trapped in the dry bed, the little rebels call on ancestors to show them what to do. Nobody gets left behind.

Caldecott Honoree and six-time Pura Belpré Medalist Yuyi Morales, creator of Dreamers, Viva Frida, and Bright Star, draws on Mexican folklore in this much-anticipated new offering. Little Rebels is as bold and spirited as the young trailblazers it chronicles. Find it also in Spanish as Peques rebeldes.

More:

Visit Yuyi Morales online at yuyimorales.com 

Learn more about the Highlights Foundation and their upcoming programs by visiting www.highlightsfoundation.org 

Transcript:

NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.

Matthew: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Children's Book Podcast, where we celebrate the power of storytelling to reflect our world, expand our perspectives, and foster connections between readers of all ages. Brought to you in partnership with the Highlights foundation, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves.

I'm your host, Matthew WInner teacher, librarian, writer, and a fan of kids. Before we begin. A quick reminder that you can hear the Children's Book Podcast early and ad free by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Click the banner on your podcast app at any time. Today on the podcast, I'm honored to welcome back Yuyi Morales, one of the most celebrated and visionary picture book creators working today.

Yuyi is a Caldecott honoree, [00:01:00] a six time Pura Belpre medalist and the creator of Dreamers. Viva Frida, bright Star, and so many unforgettable books that expand our hearts and imaginations Her newest picture book, little Rebels is a bold spirited celebration of curiosity, intuition, and the power young people hold when they learn and imagine together.

The story follows three children who find each other through play and shared wonder. They ask questions. They make up new words. When the old ones don't fit, they trust themselves enough to change their minds. And when trouble comes, when the local lagoon drives and a bird friend is left stranded, they call on their ancestors and their collective creativity to do what needs to be done.

Rooted in Mexican folklore and brought to life with Yuyi's unmistakable visual language. Little rebels is a radiant tribute [00:02:00] to trailblazers of all ages. It's a book about community imagination and the transformative power of young rebels who refuse to leave anyone behind. This conversation with Yuyi is reflective, energizing, and deeply meaningful.

I am so glad I get to share it with you. I'm so glad that through Yuyi's example, we can learn how to better care for each other. Please welcome Yuyi Morales to the podcast.

Yuyi: My name is Yuyi Morales, although I've been trying to. Change my name to feel like, how does it feel like to name yourself, for the things that you take care of. I think that's one of the things that I still, and I'm still Yuyi Morales, and I am a writer and an illustrator of picture books [00:03:00] and I always in love with books for Children.

Matthew: I love that Yuyi, we've our world has been changing since you and I have last talked. And so I thought I'm going to start asking folks this question at the top. So I'm going to ask you as my first guest to be asked Yuyi, what is giving you hope today? 

Yuyi: Wow. That's a tricky question. And it's a very good question because I think that if we don't ask ourselves that question, then we don't go into finding out and realizing what are the things that are giving us hope today.

This morning I woke up very early. I'm just back from being in India. And I, my sleeps is still like all over the place, so I'm waking up very early and I went to this little fruit forest that I planted. I started planting it two and a half years ago. And and [00:04:00] I think that brings me hope because the forest, especially the.

The fruit forest, I think is such an equivalent for what happens in life. For example, food forest that, that was not created by the birds and by nature itself, but that maybe we had an intervention for it. It is, it's not a place where you take care of one tree or one plant and you do everything you need to keep this plant or this tree alive, right?

So then you don't use any chemicals or any devices to keep it alive because what you are doing is you are taking care of an entire ecosystem. You are taking care of a whole forest. So if a plant there is not doing well or is dying, rather than trying to go and fix that, what you do is you go and [00:05:00] find what is happening that maybe that.

Little forest needs for this plant to pass and give space to another one. And every time I'm there in this little forest I'm just, I feel like I'm just constantly learning and constantly marvel at and even when things might not be as bright outside. Of that space. If I go there and I see how there is a new nest in one of the.

Still little trees or that there are this iana baby iguanas, like finding places where to live in this space or that the birds are eating all the bananas that I was supposed to to harvest. It doesn't matter because this is just part of life and that's what is bringing me hope because. I really wanna take care of that place.

And that emotion of [00:06:00] really wanting to take care of something that is important to me is what brings me hope because there are many things that are important to me. So that's just like a place where I can practice that. 

Matthew: Thank you. And thank you for bringing us to the present moment. With you.

I appreciate that you've got many new books since we last talked, but one that brings us together today is Little Rebels, and I have an awful lot that I would like to ask you about this book because I found it resonated with me in quite a special way. But first, would you mind sharing with readers of all ages what this book is to you?

Yuyi: This book is a story. That I created when I was trying to answer a question that I had, and this is that I was seeing, like all of us, we've been seeing a lot of things happening in [00:07:00] the world and I was feeling very. In, in the, in front of things that felt very big and that maybe I didn't feel like I had the power to make a change or contribute to or just simply fight against whatever needed to be fought against.

And I was feeling so small and I was thinking, how must be like for children to be that young and little? And not know what to do with problems that sometimes felt very big. And I felt that if I as an adult and I'm feeling that, I wonder how it's like for children. So I went into an exploration and what I will tell readers about legal rebels is that it is a book full of.

Questions for which I don't really necessarily offer an answer, but I offer some of the [00:08:00] answers that I have found through the journey. And this is a book that explores what it's like to be a little rebel. And if, I don't know if this happened to you, but when I was little my mom will have not liked me to identify as a little rebel.

Because we might have different ideas of what a, a rebel really is. 

Matthew: Yeah. 

Yuyi: But if we appropriate the term, then we can decide what our rebelliousness. Us and in this case, these are three children plus son animals that find themselves first finding each other, taking all the time they need to find each other.

And also this idea that we might think that we know what rebels are, but actually rebels. Are anyone and can be anyone, and we come in all colors and shapes. We don't have to be like this. [00:09:00] Overwhelming or very outgoing person to be a rebels. We are rebels in many different ways, but in this case, I think that what I'm exploring in this book is that rebelliousness against what we have been taught to doing this work, which most of the time comes with individuality.

So in this book. I think I'm chanting I'm singing a song to what it's like to get together with others and do it in a way where the most important thing is that we take care of each other. 

Matthew: I think we can be taught, or maybe I'm pulling in from my childhood, that perhaps we were taught about being rebels.

That was negative, that we should fall in line. Yeah. And look at what other people are doing and behave, yes. Behave that way. And I think that this is a different time now and I appreciate that those of us, that. [00:10:00] Came up being told that are now working with children and teaching them that you rebelling is not misbehavior at all.

In fact, there's so much joyfulness throughout your book, Yuyi, that I think, thank you. It's very easy to read the pictures and know being rebellious is the act of. Questioning why things are how they are, and questioning if they can be made better for everyone's benefit. It benefits me when my friends are taken care of and my family is taken care of.

We all benefit from that when exactly individuals are able to thrive and have access to what they need freely. And so having lots of voices in this book I think really serves very well. And I had to ask you this later, but I feel like it's a good time to ask you now about finding the voice for this book, because to me, having heard you in my ears over so many years, [00:11:00] I hear your voice in this story, and I see you in front of children.

But you've brought in the voice of many children throughout this book too. So I think what I'm trying to ask is how, what was it like for you to find the voice in this story? Because there are many voices that you've invited into this story. Yeah.

Yuyi: I realize that as I get older and as I make more and more books, rather than getting easier, the process becomes more complex and complicated.

Look at you grow. 

Matthew: I love that you do that to yourself, that you continue to seek and to grow. Oh, 

Yuyi: thank [00:12:00] you.

This book was really hard for me to create, because. I felt like I had big expectations. I wanted to talk about things that I was learning and the voices that I was hearing in the time when I started making that book. Were the voices of people who were fighting to protect. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit about it as I start making little levels.

I had met with a group of [00:13:00] women who had who had a collective and where we start doing things together. And one of the things that we first did is that we made noodles together and. I've always worked all by myself and on my desk creating my own images for my books, but all of them coming from me.

And this was an exercise of how we create and we, this is not a collective of artists, is not people who have gone to art school. It was people from my neighbors, the community, and we just came together to create, a mural that had mural, our first, all of our voices. And so there was no one simple person who decided what this, these murals were gonna look like.

We, we made several murals together. So in the city I brought one project [00:14:00] for murals here at the school in La Manche in this little town where I live right now, which is a small school with only 35 children. But we brought the murals to, to the, to this environment where children were deciding what the mural was gonna portray, what they were gonna say through this form of art.

And to me, that's changed everything to me. That this is not anymore a solo project where I am the only voice. Saying what I wanna say, but then where there is a reverberation of voices and there come different ideas and maybe things that I hadn't heard before, but now I heard them because we are all saying them through this murals and I, that began at the same time that I was telling, trying to tell this story and what it was gonna be about.

If I could say anything about these people who I was working [00:15:00] with is that they were big rebels. They were people who against all arts, they are making art even if they are not considered artists. Who are painting and getting together and also saying things about their value as people, but especially about how when we get together, how important is not only to organize ourselves, to do something, to action something, but also how important it is in the process. We learn how to care for each other. If we can put a, like a meaning to the word love, I will say it was embodied here as scared. We were learning to care for each other.

And in that sense, we were learning how to love each other in the process because without affection, without caring for each [00:16:00] other, any organization, any, whatever we decided to create wasn't gonna hold for very long. Maybe we will have a wonderful mural, but that will be it. 

Matthew: I think it takes intention.

To know how to care for someone else. It takes noticing someone, seeing someone. I think that's a, an exceptional act of love That makes sense to me. And then to create something together. Yes, and to de-center ourselves and our voice so that others can be centered or can blend in voice with us to create something.

Sounds like love to me. 

Yuyi: That's what it is exactly. 

Matthew: You mentioned in your notes in the back of this book about this memory of the Pharaon Lagoon and how that informed some of this as well. Do you mind bringing that [00:17:00] memory in? 

Yuyi: Yeah, absolutely. So when I was little, I must have been around eight or nine.

My, my father took us to this lagoon which is only a couple of kilometers from where I'm at right now. It's very 

Matthew: close. Wow. 

Yuyi: It is very close. And my, my father had friends there and they were fishing people, and so we came to the fa we call it the Faron, that's how we say it in Spanish and Faron.

And we came to this lagoon and. We play, we I, one of my most vivid memories is that the adults at some point, like they made a fire and everything, and at some point they took one of these wooden boats and it was their boat, and they went inside of the lagoon. And when they came back, they had fish.

And then at that time I was not a vegetarian yet, [00:18:00] but I think that was one of my beginnings because I saw how they brought the fish out and just in a rock, they ha they grabbed the knife and they started like scraping the fish to take the scales off and the fish were still alive.

Whoa. Yeah, so it was like, just fresh. And that was it. They cleaned it and then they put it in the fire. And yes, we ate the fish, but I remember being like very impressed by the fact that the fish was still alive. Like I say, I think it was one of my those things that eventually brought me to changing the way I eat because.

I didn't wanna eat something that had to fight for its life. But anyway it, it was an really nice day. We had been playing with other children, the children of my father's friends. And at the end we went home and [00:19:00] just like exhausted and happy and. And then I grew up, I moved to the United States and then many years passed until I came back to Mexico to live here after living in the United States for almost 20 years.

And then COVID happened. And I was living in the city. It's called Halal. It is the capital of the state. It is a place where I was born. I was living in the city. And when COVID happened I've, I had just finished my book, pride Star and then I come out of my bubble because when I'm working, I'm inside of a bubble.

So I didn't even, I knew that COVID was happening, but I wasn't even going out anyway. So when I finished this book, I I look for a place where to go and my partner and I decided to come to the beach. We [00:20:00] came to the ocean. And I fell in love with this place and I didn't go anymore. I bought a little place and I made myself this hutch that you see right here.

And I've been living here since then. And then one day as I'm driving a little further north, like just going to get some stuff in the next town. I see the la I saw it as I was driving and I had heard about it, but I had not seen it with my own eyes, which is that this lagoon was empty and the only thing that was left was like a big kind of crater circle all gray.

And a little bit of like a mirror of water at the very center, but all the water otherwise was gone [00:21:00] and it coincided with other things, that, that were happening. Because at the moment I didn't know what do you do about this lagoon? You know what is there to do about a lagoon Just getting empty?

And I didn't know that there were people working. To restore the lagoon, but they were, these people were also trying to find out what had happened, and one of the things that they discover is that when the lagoon dried off is that there were a lot of hoses that had taken that water and that water that was used for.

Industrial agriculture for, mining. And so water had been taken out of the lagoon and now the lagoon was empty. The lagoon is only one of the examples of things happening here, but just in front of me, there is a beautiful mountain that is being [00:22:00] stolen as well because it's just being like all the rocks is also like being carved and taken out to industrial projects.

And I. I had not seen that before like my eyes had not had a chance to see, and then later to process that. That's something that is happening almost everywhere. But most of the time we just don't know it. We don't see it. We are in our cities or in our houses at home, just living our lives as best as we can under whatever circumstances.

And we don't realize that our natural resources are being taken like until they almost disappear. And that's, that was it was not the answer for my story. It was not the only thing that I wanted to say about [00:23:00] in, in that book. But that was an important thing I think.

I, I really wanted to bring. The things that I was learning about, and also to celebrate that I was finding people who were working hard to protect those places. I think that's the most important thing that happened when I was making that book, is that I got to meet people who are working like warriors and rebels.

To protect those natural resources that we still have. 

Matthew: You used the word learn a lot, both in your description here, but also in the book you write too. When we don't know how to mend the hurt, we ask those who rebelled long before us. Being able to call on the people that have come before us and also to recognize that it doesn't need to be.[00:24:00] 

Some sort of light switch that you choose to rebel so you go fix things. But rather that we all of us, in order to heal part of that journey is learning. I appreciate too in that back matter that you say something along the, I was looking for it. I couldn't quite find the language, but you say something along the lines of this doesn't just happen, somebody did this.

Yeah. We have to be, yes. Part of maybe that rebellious thought is recognizing that you don't just go, oh, the climate's warming up, or the water is drained, and it used to be there, something happened. So to interrupt, perhaps whatever way our brains try to pacify the shock of some of change, of witnessing change for you to remind us that.

There were decisions made whether you yes. Intentionally supported those decisions or not, or knowingly supported those decisions [00:25:00] or not. There were decisions made that caused nature, that caused your neighborhood, that caused, that thing that you used to notice to change in some way. And I really walked away appreciating that you called that out because for all of the little things you include in this book, what runs throughout is a caring language that we are all learning together, but but noticing is also an act of love and care. Yes. Yes, 

Yuyi: definitely noticing as an act of love. Letting ourselves be seen is also an act of love because we only do it when we know that we are safe, for instance. And as a, you asked me earlier about, about hope and what it gave me hope.

I was thinking about how hope is one of those. Very [00:26:00] those terms that we take and we, we brandish like a flag or put it in our heart and we talk a lot about it. But the truth is that it we can say that term is a term in dispute. We wanna use it for our own purposes in many different ways.

And one of the things that I have learned about hope is that to the system that is taking our resources, our natural resources, and also our dignity, to the, that system it matters for us to lose our hope to believe that there is nothing or the system to 

Matthew: succeed. 

Yuyi: Yes, that the, to feel that there is nothing else we can do.

So let's just enjoy the TV show tonight. Because there is nothing else we can do. So not only they are still in our natural resources, they are also still in our possibility to feel that we are the makers of whatever this wall we want it to be. [00:27:00] It is for us to decide and to action, to make it just exactly the way we want it.

Matthew: Yes. And to do it together. You close your back matter. You write, life took a turn for me when I began learning how the changes that truly make a difference are those we create together. Yes. Yes. I appreciate your emphasis on the things that matter are us, are the things we. Are we? Yes. The things that matter, aren't you alone?

They can't be because the way the matter is created, the way that importance is created is in sharing. Tell me more, if you don't mind, about the things that make a difference are those we create with others. 

Yuyi: Yeah. You know how like most of must like most everybody else. [00:28:00] I have spent years trying to find my own wellness, how to, be taking care of myself and, my family as well and everything.

But, I also realized that I hadn't seen the whole picture yet until I realized that no matter what I found, whether it was taking a course or doing yoga or going to the top of the mountain by myself and meditating or taking a bath or something like that healing might be a healing.

A temporary one and one that brings me to be better for a moment, but it will not change what sustains us for us to, to change like our territory and to make it a place where we can all be safe. It needs to be a collective healing. Maybe and it's so [00:29:00] valid that for example, I am an a United States citizen, right?

And I might feel safe thinking that nothing is gonna happen to me if ICE comes and tries to take me, because at the end, I am a US citizen, so I should not be in trouble. But that does not, but that's so far from enough. Because what we really need is that the whole system disappears so that we can all be safe.

And that's why, although it is important for each of us to be in a place where we are safe and taking care of individually, it won't sustained healing and wellbeing until it sustains us everybody. Until I am fee fear free from fear, but also [00:30:00] are you and them and us and everybody. It is not enough that one or only a few of us are okay.

We need to create a space, a world, a territory where we are all gonna be taken care of and otherwise it's just not gonna be enough. 

Matthew: My goodness. I am so grateful that you are a person speaking to our children. I'm grateful that you're a person speaking to me. Your words resonated in me. I carry them Yuyi.

I'm grateful for you. 

Yuyi: Thank you, Matthew. Thank you. I really like talking to you. Also, 

Matthew: I wanna close our time by asking you a question I've asked you before, but I meet you a new day. Every time that we meet, it's a different day. We're at a different part in our life. So I know that this question becomes different because of who we are in this moment.

So I'll ask you [00:31:00] today, Yuyi that I will see a library full of children tomorrow morning. Is there a message that I can bring to them from you? 

Yuyi: It is like I have so many things I wanna tell children, and what I've been doing is I've been doing it through books. I've been telling them one, that their story matters.

That no matter what they come from or who they are, or how they speak, or how they look like, they are always loved and welcome. And I dunno, who are the children you are gonna be seeing tomorrow. But I hope that there is, there are at least one or two or many children who speak Spanish or that come from another place.

And they come to live now in the United States, but their families brought them from. And another country, another space. And I would love for you to [00:32:00] tell them that, they are beautiful and they are always welcome in this place where they are at right now. And we'll do, I will do, personally, I will do anything I need to do to always protect them.

I know that I am not enough, like my efforts will never be enough if I do it by myself, so I'm going to need. Your help, Matthew, and the help of everybody who might be listening so that we don't have to impose in our children the responsibility of making our world a better place. So that we as adults make sure that we are giving them that space where they can grow up and shine and be safe and not worry about anything else, but just being the best version that they want to be.

So I think I would like you to tell them [00:33:00] that we are doing our best and that I hope that they, they decide to put little rebels together because that's a joyful thing too.