“A newborn fawn awakens to a dangerous world in this sumptuously illustrated picture book set in the Sonoran Desert.”—PEOPLE
“Caldecott honoree Yuyi Morales’s best book yet. . . . Bright Star, which was simultaneously published in an all-Spanish version called Lucero, does what very few picture books can do: captivate a child while moving the adult who is reading to her.”—New York Times
“This book is beautiful to behold, and every spread is magically rendered with bright colors, embroidered text and the desert critters that live in the borderlands. Morales reminds her readers that all humans and life are important and that we can dream a better future into existence for all who live here.”—Washington Post
★ “In English text that holds Spanish within it, Morales meditates on community, imagination, immigration, and the natural world, often pulling from current events and recent societal traumas. Thanks to some awe-inspiring moments and rather startling images, the fawn’s journey moves at a dreamy pace, inviting further rereads. . . . Utterly beautiful.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
★ “An effective picture book both for learning about the Sonoran Desert’s many layers and ecological diversity and for emphasizing for younger readers the dangers of harsh divisions. . . . With all the careful and lush attention to detail, this is a picture book worth coming back to over and again. Whether in English or Spanish, keep a space for it on the shelf.”—Booklist, Starred Review
★ “Beauty gleams from the pages. . . . Morales shares her love for the borderlands, shows the pain the border wall inflicts, and presents an invitation to learn more.”—School Library Journal, Starred Review
★ “Morales (Dreamers) writes a love song to the land that forms the border between the U.S. and Mexico. . . . A visual shift links the fragility of the desert’s life to the vulnerability of people stuck on one side of the border—both are at the mercy of oppressive forces, and their fates are intertwined. Yet Morales holds out the hope of a beautiful world, discussed in a lyrically written afterword.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
★ “[A] sensitive and evocative picture book. . . .”—The Horn Book, Starred Review
★ “A powerful, radiant picture book. . . . Bright Star is a marvel and a masterpiece, both a lullaby and a cry for survival.”—Shelf Awareness
“The encouraging prose and the symbolism are lovely. . . . Morales captures the flora and fauna of the Sonoran desert with tender fidelity, depicting a delicate Southwestern Eden teeming with life from peccaries to bats to flowering cactus and ruptured by the harshly looming wall. Touchable textures, including wool embroidery for some words, increase the fascination of the glowing scenes. . . .”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
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