By Maggie Hartman
The best way to experience a beautiful children’s book (like Dreamers) is with actual children. This past week, 800 local elementary students came to an event hosted by The Big Read Lakeshore that included a presentation by StrikeTime Dance Company and a talk by the author of the Little Read book Dreamers, Yuyi Morales.
The event began with a fantastic performance by the Strike Time Dance Company. The performance captured the beauty of storytelling and incorporated various parts of the book Dreamers, like dreamcatchers and the traditional Mexican dress and dancing.
They did a wonderful job of engaging students with motions and little jokes that were embedded into the script, which the students loved. The set was beautiful, and the students in attendance loved every minute of it.
After the introduction to Dreamers by StrikeTime and local Herrick librarians, Yuyi took the stage.
Yuyi started out by speaking about her experiences as a multilingual person and the power she has in it. She asked students in the audience if they spoke various languages, and many students were bilingual or multilingual and loved relating to her in that way. Yuyi went on to talk about her process as a writer and as an illustrator. She had pictures of her first sketches and the sketches that did not make the cut to the final print of Dreamers to show the students her process of taking pictures of real-world things around her and incorporating them into her illustrations.
Yuyi also focused on how creation and the act of creating itself is so important. She asked the students if any of them had drawn a picture or written a story before. Of course, all of them had. She told them that they were already authors and illustrators, and she hoped to be able to see their work one day. It was clear that the students were inspired by Yuyi Morales, and it was such an amazing experience.
Overall, this was an incredible experience for everyone involved! A huge thank you to the members of Strike Time, the teachers who brought their students, and Yuyi Morales for making this event so special and meaningful!
