Child Aid Champion Yuyi Morales, an award-winning children’s author and illustrator, joined us in Guatemala to dedicate a school library at the La Fe school. Morales’ generosity allowed our organization to fill this library with thousands of colorful, engaging books to help elementary-age students learn how to read. Morales sat down with us to discuss her experience meeting and reading to students in Guatemala and the importance of libraries in her own life.

Child Aid: Thank you for coming down to Guatemala and spending time meeting our literacy trainers and the students in the schools who benefit most from our literacy program.

Yuyi Morales:  I am so, so happy to be here. If there is a place where I would most like to share my books, it is in places like this Child Aid school. And truly, you are planting small seeds. Now, you are giving an opportunity to one of my books to be a part of the work that you all are doing, and it feels like what I am doing could not be in better hands.

CA: You’ve visited our Child Aid offices and schools in Guatemala. What surprised you the most about your experience with us?

YM: It’s been a journey seeing all the parts and pieces that go into making the program work. The thing that surprised me the most is the enthusiasm of the teachers. I wish they were my teachers! The teachers are working with their hearts, with their hands, with their feet, just bringing every part of themselves into the process of recognizing the power of books in children’s lives. In the United States we are so used to having books be so accessible. We can go to a bookstore and buy books for our children, and while it is true that some families cannot afford to do that, you have to come to a place like Guatemala to know that [easy access to books] is something that is not going to be on the horizon for a lot of people. I can see the teachers’ commitment makes a difference in their lives. I can see these children are embodying what I hope every child will have: That they are getting empowered, that they have questions, that they have opinions, that they have feelings, that they have connections to those books.

CA: What were some of the earliest titles that made an impact on you as a reader and an artist?

YM: I don’t remember the first books I saw. I was a new mother with a baby exploring a place I had never seen before: the public library in the Bay Area in the United States. As a child growing up in Mexico, we didn’t have literature for children, so finding that was something new, it was a discovery. I don’t even remember the first books that made an impact on me because I didn’t have the language to recognize the titles. One day, I found a book that had a protagonist that looked like my son, that looked like me, that spoke the same language I did, and who  had a life I could recognize. What that book did was give me something I hadn’t imagined before: There are books made for children … like the one I carried in my own arms.

I love books with great illustrations. I remember the work of David Shannon, but it wasn’t until I found the Latino authors such as Gary Soto, who wrote a book called Too Many Tamales, that I realized books are meant for everybody.

CA: As you accompany Child Aid into several Guatemalan public elementary schools, how are you hoping the students you meet will see you or what do you hope they will take away from your visit?

YM: [These children] are one of the most precious things in this world. These children who know languages that we don’t know, these children that lead the world in a different way than we do, who are full of richness, love and life deserve the books like the ones you are providing for them … and they still deserve so much more.

[Providing books and teacher training] is an act of justice. It makes me very happy to see how happy they are to receive these books and how empowered they seem to become. Hopefully what will happen is people in countries like the United States will stop seeing them as people who still need to grow, still need to acquire something else. I hope they will see [these children] as equals.

Sometimes well-intentioned groups have the idea that we will bring more to those who have less. In reality, it is an exchange. It is a privilege that we are able to share what we have, our richness, our learning. It is not an act of charity but an act of creating a world that is more even and more empowered.

CA: Your latest book, Dreamers, was published simultaneously in Spanish. Is that unusual?

YM: In English, my book is called Dreamers, but in Spanish its Soñadores. And in the U.S., historically, books in Spanish are not very well known because, in the first place, we’ve all got to speak English. Second, who is going to buy it? [The majority of the publishing industry] believes people who speak Spanish don’t read. They don’t read, so it’s not a good business move, so why would we publish it if no one, or very very few people are going to buy it? But in the case of my book, my publisher asked me if I wanted to print it in Spanish, and I said, totally! Yes! So, the [Spanish and English] versions were published at the same time, and I was just asking my publisher how it was going and he said, “We are completely surprised.” In reality, people are buying the [Spanish version] of my book.”

CA: When did you fall in love with reading?

YM: When I was in school, there were never books like [Child Aid provides], and I don’t remember any teacher who was enthusiastic. It was always just academics, and typically the teacher was always overwhelmed because they didn’t have the tools to fulfill their job.

What I liked to read the most were the magazines that my dad bought on the weekends. I didn’t grow up liking books, I didn’t feel like I had any connection with them. So, I had to recognize that there were books for children when I came as an immigrant to the U.S.,  and at that time, I was already an adult with a baby. I discovered you can put your whole life into a book, from who you love to the way you learn to who you want to be. You can learn a new language. I had to learn English through children’s books, recognizing the stories through the pictures, because I didn’t know very many words. So for me, books became like a person I fell in love with.

CA: If you were stranded on a desert island and could have only two items, what would you take with you and why?

YM: I would take a pencil with an eraser and one piece of writing: my favorite book ever and the one that changed my life is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s La Increible y Triste Historia de la Candida Erendira y de su Abuela Desalmada. I can see having that book with me for many l reasons. First, I would have the book to read, but I would also use the book as paper, and I would start making my drawings on the edges of the pages. Perhaps I would make drawings with the words inside, so that it could become something more than just one book.

I’m always in awe of libraries; they changed my life, I know that.  It is where I found who I wanted to be and also who I didn’t want to be. [From books], I acquired tools and learned how to do  things I wanted to do, but not everyone can have access to libraries, to books. One thing I’ve learned is that we do have those our books inside of us. Maybe you don’t know it exists; It is like looking at yourself in the mirror. And in the case of being stranded on an island, what I think I will do is use both of my tools to create a library for myself. In case there is not a book in your life at this moment, you can always know there is a book inside you.

CA: Thank you, Yuyi! 

YM: Thank you so much for what you all are doing here, and thank you so much for making me a very small part of this work. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my own work and my stories, and to feel like they have an audience in places where it transforms them into something valuable. The work of people like me would serve no purpose if there weren’t people like you all to give them life.