Each year as part of the Great Reads program at the Library of Congress National Book Festival, every state offers a book that highlights its literary culture and history. At this year’s festival, the Kansas Center for the Book, a program of the State Library of Kansas, will feature That is My Dream! by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Daniel Miyares .

The book will be featured at the Kansas booth at the National Book Festival, September 1, 2018, in Washington D.C. and will be included in the Great Reads brochure distributed at the festival.

About the book

“Dream Variation,” one of Langston Hughes’s most celebrated poems, about the dream of a world free of discrimination and racial prejudice, is now a picture book stunningly illustrated by Daniel Miyares, Leawood, Kansas.

Langston Hughes’s inspiring and timeless message of pride, joy, and the dream of a better life is brilliantly and beautifully interpreted in Daniel Miyares’s gorgeous artwork. Follow one African-American boy through the course of his day as the harsh reality of segregation and racial prejudice comes into vivid focus. But the boy dreams of a different life: one full of freedom, hope, and wild possibility, where he can fling his arms wide in the face of the sun.

Langston Hughes, a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the most influential and esteemed writers of the twentieth century, was born in Joplin, Missouri, and spent much of his childhood in Kansas before moving to Harlem. See https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/langston-hughes/15506.

Daniel Miyares is an author and illustrator of stories for children. He grew up in South Carolina before studying at Ringling College of Art and Design. After graduating with a BFA in illustration, he moved to Johnson County with his wife and their two children.

That is My Dream! is available at public libraries in Kansas. Visually impaired readers may download it through the State Library of Kansas Talking Books program: https://kslib.info/Talking-Books.

For more information about the State Library of Kansas, see https://kslib.info.