Filled with lush plants, starlight, water and birds, the illustrations shine on the page. Lopez gives us a bright-colored glimpse of Cuba in this picture book. The build up in the book is done with real skill, allowing readers to thrill at her accomplishments as her hard works comes to fruition. It is a book that celebrates artistic gifts even as it works to dismantle gender stereotypes and show that girls have the same artistic skills as boys do. Reading like poetry, the book looks deeply at a girl who refused to give up her dream to play the drums, even as she hid the dream deep inside herself. And she could!Įngle, known for her gorgeous poetic books for older readers, has created a marvelous picture book here. Her father did not approve of her drumming but eventually allowed her to play for a teacher to see if she could really drum. Finally the girl dared to start drumming on real drums and she joined her sister in an all-girl band.
Everyone said that only boys could be drummers though, so she kept quiet about her dreams.Everywhere she went though she could hear drumbeats that were all her own.
In Cuba, girls were not drummers, but one girl dreamed of pounding drums big and small and making amazing music. Inspired by a true story, this picture book is about a girl who refused to allow societal rules to stop her from her musical dreams. Recommended to anyone looking for beautifully-illustrated picture-books, to those who enjoy more poetic picture-book texts, and to readers searching for children's stories about girl musicians and/or Cuban musical pioneers. A brief afterword gives more information about Castro Zaldarriaga, who is never named in the main text. It is poetic, allusive, rhythmic - in short, everything it should be to capture a dreaming drummer's tale. That text is just as beautifully realized. Amazed at what he hears, the teacher takes her on as a pupil, eventually getting her her first gig as a drummer.ĭrum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music was awarded the 2016 Pura Belpré Award for Illustration, and it's not difficult to see why! Rafael López' artwork is absolutely gorgeous here, utilizing a deep, vivid color palette, and creating beautifully stylized scenes that capture the energy and music of the text. Hearing beats all around her, in the natural and human worlds, and in her own heartbeat, the girl must dream and drum in secret, until her father finally relents and has a teacher listen to her. Inspired by the story of Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, a Chinese-African-Cuban girl who dreamed of being a drummer in a time when that occupation was reserved for boys and men, Cuban-American author Margarita Engle spins a poetic narrative about a "drum dream girl" who cannot quell her natural impulse to drum.
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