Bright Star - Lucero

By Yuyi Morales

 

 

 

Publisher: ‎ Neal Porter Books (September 7, 2021)

Language: ‎ English

Hardcover: ‎ 40 pages

ISBN-10: ‎ 0823443280

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0823443284

 

From the creator of the New York Times bestseller Dreamers comes a heartbreakingly beautiful story about growth, empowerment, and finding one's own voice.

 

Child, you are awake!

You are alive!

You are a bright star, 

Inside our hearts.

 

Told with a combination of powerful, spare language and sumptuous and complex imagery that is typical of Yuyi Morales's work, this is the story of a fawn making her way through a border landscape teaming with flora and fauna native to the region. A gentle but empowering voice encourages her to face her fears when she comes across an obstacle in the form of an insurmountable barrier.

 

Yuyi Morales' first book since her New York Times bestseller Dreamers is a book for very young children looking for their place in a world full of uncertainty. It is a book with resonance for all children, especially those whose safety is threatened due to the immigration crisis in the US.

 

 

Review

"In English text that holds Spanish within it, Morales meditates on community, imagination, immigration, and the natural world, often pulling from current events and recent societal traumas. Thanks to some awe-inspiring moments and rather startling images, the fawn’s journey moves at a dreamy pace, inviting further rereads. . . . Utterly beautiful."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

 

"Beauty gleams from the pages. . . . Morales shares her love for the borderlands, shows the pain the border wall inflicts, and presents an invitation to learn more."—School Library Journal, Starred Review 

 

"Morales (Dreamers) writes a love song to the land that forms the border between the U.S. and Mexico. . . . A visual shift links the fragility of the desert's life to the vulnerability of people stuck on one side of the border—both are at the mercy of oppressive forces, and their fates are intertwined. Yet Morales holds out the hope of a beautiful world, discussed in a lyrically written afterword."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review 

 

"[A] sensitive and evocative picture book. . . ."—The Horn Book, Starred Review 

 

"A powerful, radiant picture book. . . . Bright Star is a marvel and a masterpiece, both a lullaby and a cry for survival."—Shelf Awareness

 

Born in Xalapa, Mexico, where she currently resides, Yuyi Morales lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she still maintains close relations with booksellers and librarians. She has won the prestigious Pura Belpré Award for Illustration six times, for Dreamers(2019), Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book (2003), Los Gatos Black on Halloween (2006), Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet Book (2008), Niño Wrestles the World (2013), and Viva Frida (2014), also a Caldecott Honor Book.