Yuyi Morales

"Everything in my life is an art project...to me it is all art."

"when I am in my studio, I constantly remind myself that steady work will give me the results I want."

"My books are a combination of my culture growing up, but also my entering a new culture as an immigrant and having to learn—to re-learn—everything so that I’d actually be able to survive in a new country."

"(about Frida Kahlo) I had just come to the United States, a place where I didn’t know how I felt about my identity as a Mexican woman, and it was her pride that had an impact on me and made me realize that I had things to be proud of too."

"Any story that can weave more than one language into a story is based in real life, because we, la gente, when we communicate, we always use many different ways of saying things. My book not only uses words, and images, but they also communicate stories with colors, forms, embroidery, and even silence. I love telling stories where English and Espanol work together to enrich the narratives, and I love it when children can play with all the languages that are part of their lives."

"I didn't have children's books when I was growing up in Mexico, but my relative's fantastic stories of little people called chaneques, and the stories of hearing la Llorona at night, filled my imagination with a world that was both unbelievable and fascinating."

"(What advice would you give to young writers?) We all have our very own ways to tell stories, and you will find yours. Honor your heart and your instincts; let your story come out first, and then revise it to make it sing! More than anything else, do what gives you joy."

"Libraries are a world where you can be safe and comfortable finding in books the things that you like the most, or things that you are curious about, or you can learn something you didn't know before. That already seems to me a path for a more beautiful world."

"I was working on a graphic novel when Donald Trump was elected president. My heart sunk. I could not believe that the man who had accused Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists had been elected to lead the United States. I felt unable to work, and that my stories made no sense anymore. I also felt afraid of what would come next for immigrant families like mine, like those of my friends and like those that my books had been written for and about."

"Animals and the natural world play a huge role in my artwork as I’ve learned so much from them."

"I remember loving Chato’s Kitchen by Gary Soto and Susan Guevara; I couldn’t believe that there was a book in the library about people from el barrio (actually cats, mice, and dogs), dressed, speaking, cooking, and having a family life that resembled mine. These books—and countless others—are the reason why I started making my own books (handmade at first, to emulate the books I loved)"

"Like many, I admire the multiple talents of Yuyi Morales—author, illustrator, videographer, moving speaker. I also admire Yuyi’s creative spirit."