Culture 3 Review - Wild Dreamers

 

Bibliographic Information

Engle, M. 2024. WILD DREAMERS. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Audio. ISBN 9781797177694

Plot Summary

Ana and her mother have been living out of their car ever since her militant father became one of the FBI’s most wanted. Leandro has struggled with debilitating anxiety since his family fled Cuba on a perilous raft.

One moonlit night, in a wilderness park in California, Ana and Leandro meet. Their connection is instant—a shared radiance that feels both scientific and magical. Then they discover they are not alone: a huge mountain lion stalks through the trees, one of many wild animals whose habitat has been threatened by humans.

Determined to make a difference, Ana and Leandro start a rewilding club at their school, working with scientists to build wildlife crossings that can help mountain lions find one another. If pumas can find their way to a better tomorrow, surely Ana and Leandro can too.

Critical Analysis

"Peace

is so luminous

and short-lived.

Sooner or later

we'll return

to reality."

Told in free verse, Wild Dreamers is a story of two teens who are passionate about conservation and one another. Written in dual point of view, (actually triple if you could Cielo the singing dog!) Ana and Leandro both face issues in the story that anyone who reads this book can relate to. New love, loss, anxiety, fear, and more are all feelings experienced in this book. The text includes Spanish words and rhythms that reflect the characters’ roots. My favorite part was when Ana described the different foods she was eating that I had never heard of before, but sounded delicious. You could tell that the characters put great importance on food and the comfort that it brings during hard times. In the story, culture isn’t just a backdrop; it drives the characters’ motivations, emotional growth, and relationships. The rewilding project, for example, is both ecological and cultural healing.

I will say that this book was, personally, a little bit of a hard read for me. Not because of any issues with the story itself, but because of my own interests. Wild Dreamers was written as a Young Adult novel, which it definitely is. I can see teenagers relating to this much more than my 31-year-old self. While Wild Dreamers writing was lyrical and beautiful at times, it was a little juvenile for my personal taste. I listened to the audio and loved the narrators; they did an excellent job conveying the emotions of the book. And while I wouldn’t put this book in my own top five, I could see a lot of people loving this book of hope, love, and conservation. 

Awards Won & Review Excerpt(s)

*Pura Belpré Young Adult Author Honor Book

"Emotions run deep and true in the concrete poems and free verse, which offer complex relationships that are familial, cultural, romantic, and environmental, appropriately blurring the lines between them for readers already invested in effecting heartfelt change." -- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Starred Review

"Distinctive verse by Engle portrays Ana and Leandro’s alternating perspectives to fully immerse readers in this sweetly rendered romance, adding depth to the teens’ parallel journeys. . . a heartwarming and inspiring eco-centric read that addresses timely issues such as conservation of wildlife and emphasizes the importance of people’s connecting to nature—and each other." -- Publishers Weekly

"Verse in various forms, including beautiful concrete poems, effectively conveys this story’s themes of sustainability, resilience, and activism. A transformative journey celebrating the power of overcoming personal struggles to make a lasting impact." -- Kirkus Reviews

Connections

*There are numerous environmental and nature books discussed in Wild Dreamers. Choose one and write a short reflection on why you think that specific book was included in Wild Dreamers and how it might have influenced the story.

*The pregnant puma interacts with the characters when she returns night after night to the cottage. Write a poem from the puma’s perspective about Leandro, Ana, the puma’s struggles, why she returns there, or anything else that would fit with the story’s themes and plot.

*Throughout the novel, Ana grapples with language, the intentions behind specific words, how they sound, and their impact. For example, she struggles with the words “unhoused” versus “homeless” to describe herself at the beginning of the story. Choose a word to describe a person, whether it be their identity or a lived experience. What is the history of the word, including its origin? Does it have negative connotations? What are the social impacts?