Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Esther Walker

Book Title: Dreamers
Author: Yuyi Morales
Genre: Multicultural, Children’s Literature, Biography
Illustrator: Yuyi Morales
Publisher/Year: Holiday House/2018
Evaluate the Book for the following elements
Style and Language: Using examples for the book, explain the following: Word
choices, dialogue, rhythm, rhyme and sentence length. Share unexpected insights or
interesting information the reader learns from this story. (5 points)
Word Choice example: “We are stories. We are two languages. We are lucha. We are
resilience. We are hope.” This example shows us power and layers of meaning.

Dialogue example: “There were so many things we didn’t know. Unable to

understand and afraid to speak, we made lots of mistakes.” In this example, the truth
emerges.

Rhythm example: “Books became our language. Books became our home. Books
became our lives.” This example shows us repeat tones.

Rhyme example: “We learned to read, to speak, to write, and to make our voices
heard.” This example shows that there is no rhyme scheme in the book.

Sentence length example: “Where we didn’t need to speak, we only needed to trust.
And we did!” This example is appealing to the ear showing varied sentence length.

Character: With examples from the book, provide the following- (5 points)
Who is the main character?
How can the reader relate to the character?
Who are the supporting characters?
The main character is Yuyi Morales.

The reader can relate to Yuyi’s love for the library and how books can change your
life as they did for Yuyi and her son. Readers can also relate to moving or being an
immigrant.
The supporting character is Yuyi’s son and the librarian.
Plot: Summarize the major events of the story (6 points)
Yuyi leaves her home in Mexico to come to the US with her baby boy. She left behind
nearly everything, but she brought her strength, hopes, dreams, and special gifts.
They were unable to understand or speak the language. She made a lot of mistakes
along the way but quickly learned the new culture. One day they went to a library
and it changed their lives forever. Book after book they learned the language and
learned to make the U.S. home. Yuyi fought through her struggles and hardships to
build her story of resilience and hope for “Dreamers.”

Setting: Explain the place and time of this book. (2 points)

Theme: What is the main message of this book? (2 points)
Setting: The setting of the story is San Francisco, CA. Her story started in the U.S. in
1994.

Theme: The main message of this book is to always remember no matter where you
go, you bring your hopes, dreams, strengths, own special gifts to build a better
future.
Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories
Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2
points)
The style of the illustrations is surrealism.

Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk):
(2 points)
Nip pens, brushes, ink, scanned photographs, acrylics, metal sheet, traditional
Mexican fabrics, crepe paper, craft paper, leaves and plants from her garden, old
woven blouse, hand-painted pants, old wood, water in a bucket, jute twine,
traditional wool skirt, childhood drawings, embroidery, photoshop, and more were
used for the media in this book!

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in the
illustrations: (3)
Line: The lines are curved and show movement. A good example is the page that says,
“Amor-Love-Amor. Resplendent life, you and I.” Yuyi and her infant son show
movement as they are reaching for one another.
Shapes: The shapes are readily identifiable. An example would be the page that says,
“One day we bundled gifts in our backpack,” there is a star, moon, flower, and leaf to
name a few readily identifiable shapes.

Color: This book is full of colors, reds, pinks, blues, greens, browns, greys, yellows,
oranges. An example on the last page where Yuyi is hold up her baby boy, you can
see every color.

Texture: There is so much texture used in the illustrations from all the many different
media choices Yuyi uses. I like the page that says, “and crossed a bridge outstretched
like the universe.” On this page if you look at the bottom there is a hand-
embroidered sign the bird is carrying that says, “Adios Corazon.”
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space and
all pages the same or different). (3)
There are beautiful page designs with full-page illustrations. Even though this book is
full of color on every page, you can tell in the beginning pages of the book there are
more “greys” where she is unsure about her journey. As you read along and she and
her son open the doors to the library, there is a burst of colors as they explore the
books.

Child Development Theory: Choose either Piaget, Erickson or Social Emotional to

describe the connection to the book Chose 1 only (5 points)
Piaget:
Name the stage: Preoperational Stage and the ages 2-7 years.
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:

The preoperational stage of cognitive development is the stage where children start to
understand the world through language and mental images. This stage starts when
the child is about 2 years old and lasts till about age 7. Children during this stage
engage in symbolic play and learn to manipulate symbols. The children do not
understand concrete logic yet. I chose this stage because when children read this
book, they are understanding the world through the words and the illustrations.
Example: “A place we had never seen before.” Although it does not tell us what the
“place” is, we can see from the text on the page and mental images together and
know that they are talking about a library!
1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: 3

Why?
I would highly recommend this book. It tells a beautiful story of Yuyi’s perseverance
when she moved to the U.S. Yuyi quickly finds out that the library holds the answers
to all her dreams! The illustrations are vibrant and eye-catching to the reader!
Children and adults everywhere will appreciate this wonderful book! For an older
group lesson plan, you could even make your “own books” “own stories” as Yuyi did!