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Pura Belpre Books, Del Sol BooksAuthor : Pam Munoz Ryan, Illustrator : Peter Sis
5th Grade and up

El Sonador
The Dreamer

Del Sol Books, Get The Complete SetEl Sonador, Softcover, Spanish, Book, Pam Munoz Ryan, Peter Sis, 5th Grade and up, 9780545176002, $6.99
The Dreamer, Hardcover, English, Book, Pam Munoz Ryan, Peter Sis, 5th Grade and up, 9780439269704, $17.99

$333.83 for the Story Collection Pura Belpre Spanish Set, Including 20%-Off, Free Shipping, and No Sales Tax : 2 Hardcover Spanish Book, 8 Hardcover Bilingual Book, 19 Softcover Spanish Books, and 12 Softcover Bilingual Books

$448.07 for the Story Collection Pura Belpre English Set, Including 20%-Off, Free Shipping, and No Sales Tax : 24 Hardcover English Books and 18 Softcover English Books

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Pura Belpre Award Winning Book in 2011 for Narrative

El Sonador, The Dreamer, Del Sol BooksSchool Library Journal : Starred Review. Grade 4–9—Readers enter the creative, sensitive mind of Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, in this beautifully written fictional biography. Ryan artfully meshes factual details with an absorbing story of a shy Chilean boy whose spirit develops and thrives despite his father's relentless negativity. Neruda, who was born Neftali Reyes, sees, hears, and feels poetry all around him from an early age. Luckily he finds understanding and encouragement from his stepmother and his uncle, whose humanitarian and liberal attitudes toward nature and the rights of the indigenous Mapuche people greatly influence his developing opinions. In early adulthood, Reyes starts using the pseudonym by which he becomes known, taking his last name from that of a famous Czechoslovakian poet. Ryan suggests that this was how he hid his activities from his father. Her poetic prose style totally dovetails with the subject. Interspersed with the text are poems that mimic Neruda's style and push readers to think imaginatively and visually. Sís's whimsical pen-and-ink pointillist illustrations enliven the presentation. Each chapter is preceded by three small drawings that hint at something to come. The perfect marriage of text and art offers an excellent introduction to one of the world's most famous poets. An appended author's note gives further insight into Neruda's beliefs and accomplishments. In addition there are excerpts from several of his poems and odes. 

Booklist : Starred Review* Respinning the childhood of the widely beloved poet Pablo Neruda, Ryan and Sís collaborate to create a stirring, fictionalized portrait of a timid boy’s flowering artistry. Young Neftalí Reyes (Neruda’s real name) spends most of his time either dreamily pondering the world or cowering from his domineering father, who will brook no such idleness from his son. In early scenes, when the boy wanders rapt in a forest or spends a formative summer by the seashore, Ryan loads the narrative with vivid sensory details. And although it isn’t quite poetry, it eloquently evokes the sensation of experiencing the world as someone who savors the rhythms of words and gets lost in the intricate surprises of nature. The neat squares of Sís’ meticulously stippled illustrations, richly symbolic in their own right, complement and deepen the lyrical quality of the book. As Neftalí grows into a teen, he becomes increasingly aware of the plight of the indigenous Mapuche in his Chilean homeland, and Ryan does a remarkable job of integrating these themes of social injustice, neither overwhelming nor becoming secondary to Neftalí’s story. This book has all the feel of a classic, elegant and measured, but deeply rewarding and eminently readable. Ryan includes a small collection of Neruda’s poetry and a thoughtful endnote that delves into how she found the seeds for the story and sketches Neruda’s subsequent life and legacy. Grades 4-8.

Kirkus Reviews : Ryan’s fictional evocation of the boy who would become Pablo Neruda is rich, resonant and enchanting. Simple adventures reveal young Neftalí’s painful shyness and spirited determination, his stepmother’s love and his siblings’ affection and his longing for connection with his formidable, disapproving father. The narrative captures as well rain falling in Temuco, the Chilean town where he was raised, and his first encounters with the forest and the ocean. Childhood moments, gracefully re-created, offer a glimpse of a poet-to-be who treasures stories hidden in objects and who recognizes the delicate mutability of the visible world, while the roots of Neruda’s political beliefs are implied in the boy’s encounters with struggles for social justice around him. Lines from a poem by Ryan along with Sís’s art emphasize scenes and introduce chapters, perfectly conveying the young hero’s dreamy questioning. The illustrator’s trademark drawings deliver a feeling of boundless thought and imagination, suggesting, with whimsy and warmth, Neftalí’s continual transformation of the everyday world into something transcendent. A brief selection of Neruda’s poems (in translation), a bibliography and an author’s note enrich an inviting and already splendid, beautifully presented work. (Historical fiction. 9-13)  Anita de la Torre never questioned her freedom living in the Dominican Republic. But by her 12th birthday in 1960, most of her relatives have emigrated to the United States, her Tío Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the government’s secret police terrorize heEl Sonador, The Dreamer, Del Sol Booksr remaining family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo’s dictatorship.  Using the strength and courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind.  From renowned author Julia Alvarez comes an unforgettable story about adolescence, perseverance, and one girl’s struggle to be free.  What would life be like for a teen living under a dictatorship? Afraid to go to school or to talk freely? Knowing that, at the least suspicion, the secret police could invade your house, even search and destroy your private treasures? Or worse, that your father or uncles or brothers could be suddenly taken away to be jailed or tortured or killed? Such experiences have been all too common in the many Latin American dictatorships of the last 50 years. Author Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents) and her family escaped from the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic when she was 10, but in Before We Were Free she imagines, through the stories of her cousins and friends, how it was for those who stayed behind.  Twelve-year-old Anita de la Torre is too involved with her own life to be more than dimly aware of the growing menace all around her, until her last cousins and uncles and aunts have fled to America and a fleet of black Volkswagens comes up the drive, bringing the secret police to the family compound to search their houses. Gradually, through overheard conversations and the explanations of her older sister, Lucinda, she comes to understand that her father and uncles are involved in a plot to kill El Jefe, the dictator, and that they are all in deadly peril. Anita's story is universal in its implications--she even keeps an Anne Frank-like diary when she and her mother must hide in a friend's house--and a tribute to those brave souls who feel, like Anita's father, that "life without freedom is no life at all." (Ages 10 to 14)

Publishers Weekly : In her first YA novel, Alvarez (How the Garc¡a Girls Lost Their Accents) proves as gifted at writing for adolescents as she is for adults. Here she brings her warmth, sensitivity and eye for detail to a volatile setting the Dominican Republic of her childhood, during the 1960-1961 attempt to overthrow Trujillo's dictatorship. The story opens as 12-year-old narrator Anita watches her cousins, the Garc¡a girls, abruptly leave for the U.S. with their parents; Anita's own immediate family are now the only ones occupying the extended family's compound. Alvarez relays the terrors of the Trujillo regime in a muted but unmistakable tone; for a while, Anita's parents protect her (and, by extension, readers), both from the ruler's criminal and even murderous ways and also from knowledge of their involvement in the planned coup d'‚tat. The perspective remains securely Anita's, and Alvarez's pitch-perfect narration will immerse readers in Anita's world. Her crush on the American boy next door is at first as important as knowing that the maid is almost certainly working for the secret police and spying on them; later, as Anita understands the implications of the adult remarks she overhears, her voice becomes anxious and the tension mounts. When the revolution fails, Anita's father and uncle are immediately arrested, and she and her mother go underground, living in secret in their friends' bedroom closet a sequence the author renders with palpable suspense. Alvarez conveys the hopeful ending with as much passion as suffuses the tragedies that precede it. A stirring work of art. Ages 12-up.

Story Collection Pura Belpre :
Antes de ser libres, Before We Were Free, Del Sol BooksArrorro mi nino Latino Lullabies and Gentle Games, Del Sol BooksBajo las palmas reales, Under the Royal Palms, Del Sol BooksBarrio Joses Neighborhood, Del Sol BooksBeisbol en Abril, Baseball in April, Del Sol BooksBook Fiesta - Book Day, Del Sol BooksCesar, Del Sol BooksChato y los amigos pachangueros, Chato and the Party Animals, Del Sol BooksChato y su cena, Chatos Kitchen, Del Sol BooksCosechando esperanza, Harvesting Hope, Del Sol BooksCuadros de familia - Family Pictures, Del Sol BooksCuba 15Dear Primo, Del Sol BooksDel ombligo de la luna - From the Bellybutton of the Moon, Del Sol BooksDevolver al Remitente, Return to Sender, Del Sol BooksDiego Bigger than Life, Del Sol BooksDona Flor, Del Sol BooksEl Gallo de Bodas - The Bossy Gallito, Del Sol BooksEn mi familia - In My Family, Del Sol BooksEl loro en el horno, Parrot in the Oven, Del Sol BooksEl Sonador, The Dreamer, Del Sol BooksEsperanza renace, Esperanza Rising, Del Sol BooksFederico Garcia Lorca, Del Sol BooksFiesta Babies, Del Sol BooksFirefly Letters, Del Sol BooksFrida, Del Sol BooksGathering the Sun, Del Sol BooksGiving - Thanks, Del Sol BooksGrandmas Gift, Del Sol BooksIguanas en la nieve - Iguanas in the Snow, Del Sol BooksJuan Bobo busca trabajo, Juan Bobo Goes to Work, Del Sol BooksJust a Minute, Del Sol BooksJust in Case, Del Sol BooksLa flor de oro, The Golden Flower, Del Sol BooksMama and Papa Have a Store, Del Sol BooksLaughing Out Loud I Fly, Del Sol BooksLa vasija que Juan Fabrico, The Pot that Juan Built, Del Sol BooksLa velita de los cuentos - The Storytellers Candle, Del Sol BooksLos Gatos Black on Halloween, Del Sol BooksMartina Una Cucarachita Muy Linda - Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, Del Sol BooksMas alla de mi, Reaching Out, Del Sol BooksMe Frida, Del Sol BooksMi diario de aqui hasta alla - My Diary from Here to There, Del Sol BooksMis colores mi mundo - My Colors My World, Del Sol BooksMy Abuelita, Del Sol BooksMy Name is Celia, Del Sol BooksMy Name is Gabito, Del Sol BooksNinety Miles to Havana, Del Sol BooksOle Flamenco, Del Sol BooksPablo Remembers, Del Sol BooksPapa and Me, Del Sol BooksPrimer dia en las uvas, First Day in Grapes, Del Sol BooksQue puedes hacer con un rebozo - What Can You Do with a Rebozo, Del Sol BooksSenderos Fronterizos, Breaking Through, Del Sol BooksSnapshots from the Wedding, Del Sol BooksSpirits of the High Mesa, Del Sol BooksThe Poet Slave of Cuba, Del Sol BooksThe Surrender Tree, Del Sol BooksThe Tequila Worm, Del Sol BooksTomates risuenos - Laughing Tomatoes, Del Sol BooksUna isla como tu, An Island Like You, Del Sol BooksVentanas magicas - Magic Windows, Del Sol BooksYo Naomi Leon, Becoming Naomi Leon, Del Sol Books

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