Yuyi Morales: Thunder and Lightning

photo: Antonio Turok

Known for her fantastical images and exquisite use of bold color, Pura Belpré winner Yuyi Morales illustrated Niño Wrestles the World; Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book; Los Gatos Black on Halloween; Just in Case; and Viva Frida, which also won a Caldecott Honor. She talked with Shelf Awareness via Skype from her home in Mexico about illustrating Thunder Boy Jr. (Little, Brown, May 10, 2016), written by Sherman Alexie.

It seems like you and Sherman Alexie have similar values--as parents, storytellers and people who straddle two cultures. Does it strike you that way, too?

Thunder Boy is an opening into the way Sherman's culture works. But it connects to things that are a part of my culture as well. I do feel like we have a very similar interest in heritage, where we come from, and also where we are going.

With all your imagery of the Earth, of thunder and lightning, and dreamscapes, you took Thunder Boy Jr. to a whole different level. In your hands, Thunder Boy's existential wrestling with his own name and identity becomes a question for the cosmos. Did you collaborate with Sherman?

I never talked directly with him, but we worked in the traditional way, through the editor. I had questions about utilizing some images, since it's not my culture and I wanted to make sure I wasn't being stereotypical, out of ignorance. Learning about other cultures has been a process--just realizing how much I don't know. And at the same time, how much we all have in common.

At one point Thunder Boy says, "I hate my name!" Tell us about the coyote and rattlesnake and bear that appear above his head.

I wanted to make a connection with nature. But also with emotions. When you are feeling angry, part of you is released, and can be expressed as a coyote, or a snake hissing. I wanted to make this connection with nature and the nature that we carry inside ourselves.

What do all the circles represent to you?

They are the connections with the family, and also with the community, and with the world. It is from these connections that we build our identity.

And the beach ball is just another circle, a way to pull them all together as they pass it from one to another?

Exactly, and so are the circles of color on the endpapers--a representation of the interlacing of our experiences.

Your illustrations are bold, colorful and alive. How did you create this artwork?

I used my house! It's very old, and it's in the city where I was born. Xalapa is one of the first pre-Columbian communities. The house on the land I bought was in ruins. The wood had layers and layers of paint when I scraped it. Because of the weather and the time, it had these colorations, and I thought they would be perfect to create a palette. The bricks were the skin colors that I used, including the dog's. And the wood was everything else. I was able to manipulate the colors with my computer.

Is there a story behind the yellow overalls?

When my son was little, he wore overalls all the time. I also wanted Thunder Boy to be his own self. He's not afraid of those colors, and if I could have done it, I would have given him pink overalls because hot pink is one of my favorite colors!

Sherman said it was your idea to interpret Thunder Boy's dream of touching an orca whale on the nose as the boy touching his father's orca mask. How did that idea come to you?

I recognize that many children are struggling with their own image, and their own identity, against that of their own family and the adults in it. When they try to compare themselves with us, the adults, they think they are not good enough. In this case, I wanted to have Thunder Boy recognize that this big killer whale is also a playful whale... and his father. A challenge and a connection. Not something to fight against, but something to conquer. Children don't need to go and touch a real killer whale to think they have done a real heroic thing. The real challenges are right at home.

Anything else you'd like to tell the readers of Shelf Awareness?

I'm really happy to bring this book to the world because I admire Sherman so much, and joining my work to his feels like the connection of Thunder Boy to his father. One is the thunder and the other one is the lightning. And I feel like here came Sherman with his thunder and here comes Yuyi with the lightning. Let's see what we do.  --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness