What Gives Yuyi Morales Hope

More hope. From the kidlit community, to you.  

No matter where you are. No matter what’s going on around you. No matter what is pulling your attention or competing for space in your mind. May these next few minutes offer you rest, peace, and hope.

Hope Ep. 34 - January 3, 2026

Yuyi Morales, author illustrator of Little Rebels (Neal Porter Books), shares what is giving her hope today: taking care of something important to her.

Listen along:

About the Book:  Little Rebels by Yuyi Morales. Published byNeal 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.

Transcript:

Yuy: "Wow, that's a tricky question. You know, 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.

Like, you know, this morning, I woke up very early. I'm just back from being in India and I, my sleep 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 I think that that brings me hope because the forest, especially the fruit forest, I think, it is such an equivalent for what happens in life.

Like, for example, a food forest that was not created by the birds and by nature itself, but that maybe we had an intervention for it is 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 and 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 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 baby iguana, like finding places where to live in this space or that the birds are eating all the bananas that I was supposed 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 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."