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Yuyi Morales is a Mexican and American author and illustrator, she is best known for books including Just a Minute, A Trickster Tale and Counting Book and Little Night. Morales has also won the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award, which honors "Latino authors and illustrators whose work best portrays and celebrates Latino cultural experience in a children's book." More recently she was a Caldecott Award Honoree for her picture book Viva Frida and became the first Latina to be awarded this prestigious award.^[2]

Yuyi Morales was born in the city of Xalapa in the Mexican State of Veracruz in 1968. She is the oldest of four children As a child she loved drawing, and often paired her pictures with stories. Her mother was a homemaker, “She made all our clothes, coats, hats, underwear. She made the bedspreads, the curtains, the lamps, everything,” Morales recalls. “She taught me to use the sewing machine when I was very little. I crocheted a vest for myself when I was five years old.Despite those nights by the sewing machine, becoming an artist was not a childhood dream for Morales. “That would have been thought of as crazy,” she says. Because she had been a top competitive swimmer in high school, she studied physical education at the Universidad de Xalapa, hoping to teach gym. After graduation, she took a job as a swim coach.”.^[3]

While working as swimming coach Morales met her husband, Tim an American citizen they married and they had a son called Kelly. She recalls the time when her father in law became seriously ill they had to go visit him in San Francisco, the new family decided to stay there because they thought it would be a better idea to raise their child in the United States. During her first years living in San Francisco, Morales remembers that she had no job, no friends and she barely spoke a few words in English. She was sad because she missed her native country and her family, Morales expresses that she felt like she did not fit in that country. One day her mother in law took her son Kelly to the most amazing and the most transcendental place for her, a public library in the city of San Francisco, she remembers she was so amazed and inspired by the section of children's books. Morales learned English by reading to her son Kelly who did not know or care if she mispronounced some words, and she could always use the illustrations to show something she did not know. Morales felt so inspired by those vivid colors and illustrations from the books that she had been reading to her son, she wondered if she could make picture books like those.^[4]

Morales bought a set of paints and brushes and enrolled in an extension class at UC Berkeley on writing for children, where she met a group of other aspiring authors and illustrators. Morales's first English-language picture-book project was Kathleen Krull's text for Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez in 2003. Reviewing Morales's work, School Library Journal contributor Sue Morgan praised her "beautifully rendered earth-tone illustrations," while Traci Todd, writing in Booklist, cited the book's "gorgeous paintings, with their rounded, organic forms and lush, gemstone hues." Morales's first self-illustrated title, Just a Minute, was published in 2003 as well. Morales kept illustrating original works like Niño Wrestles the World and Little Night Nochecita. She has also illustated books for different authors like Georgia in Hawaii: When Georgia O'Keeffe Painted What She Pleased, Ladder to the Moon, Los Gatos Black en Halloween, My Abuelita, Sand Sister and Floating on Mama's song.^[5]

• Americas Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP).
• Parent's Choice Award Winner.
• Northern California Book Award Nomination, Children's Literature.
• Best of the Best List.
• Chicago Public Library, Best Children's Books of the Year.
• Bank Street College of Education all 2003 for Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book.
• Pura Belpre Illustrator Award.
• California Book Award Silver Medal for Juvenile Fiction.
• Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award.
• Golden Kite Honor Book.
• Picture Book Illustration.
• Latino Book Award.
• Latino Literary Award for Best Children's Book.
• Notable Books for Children,Younger Readers.
• Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choices Selection.
• Notable Books for a Global Society, all 2004, for Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book; Americas Award Honorable Mention.
• School Library Journal Best Books.
• San Francisco Chronicle Best of Year.
• Lasting Connections, Best of the Year.
• Book Links Magazine, Best of the Year.
• Child magazine, all 2003, for Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez;
• Christopher Award.
• Jane Addams Book Award.
• Pura Belpre Honor for illustration.
• CCBC Choices Selection.
• Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People.
• The National Council for Social Studies.
• Blue Bonnet Award Nomination, all 2004, for Harvesting Hope.^[6]

Category:Living people