Dream Street
About the Story
Welcome to Dream Street, the best street in the world! Here, everyone is special and children believe their dreams will come true. Meet:
Azaria, who can jump rope and dance and dream of winning a big shiny trophy — all at the same time!
Mr. Sidney, who’ll greet you with his usual words: “Don’t wait to have a great day. Create one.”
Belle, who catches butterflies but always lets them go. As she says, “Everything has a right to be free.” One day, she wants to be a lepidopterist—a scientist who studies butterflies.
Dream Street is a celebration of a place where love is powerful and a nuturing community can make anything possible.
— from the book jacket of Dream Street
Great Reads from Great Places 2023
Discussion Questions
“Welcome to Dream Street—the best street in the world!” Why do the people who live on Dream Street think it is special?
Would you like to live on Dream Street? Why or why not?
Belle dreams of becoming a scientist who studies butterflies. Zion dreams of becoming a librarian. Ede and Tari dream of creating a picture book. Do you have a dream? What is it?
What is your neighborhood like? How is it similar or different to Dream Street? What makes your neighborhood special to you?
How do the adults of Dream Street encourage the dreams of the kids growing up there?
For more discussion questions and educational resources, see Dream Street—National Education Association.
Roxbury—1978
The map on the right was a result of the Living in Boston Project of the Mayor’s Office of Program Development, John Weis, Director. The map highlights Crosstown Industrial Park, Madison Park, Dudley Station, Highland Park, Sav-Mor, Shirley-Eustis House, Washington Park, and Franklin Park in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. Click on the map to view it up close.
Dream Street is inspired by the Roxbury neighborhood that Tricia Elam Walker and Ekua Holmes grew up in together. This map shows a Roxbury a few years past the end of their childhood.
Exploring Roxbury
National Center of Afro-American Artists
The Museum at NCAAA is dedicated to the celebration, exhibition, collection, and criticism of black visual arts heritage worldwide. Presented is a wide range of historical and contemporary exhibitions in various media, including painting, sculpture, graphics, photography, and decorative arts.
The Malcolm X-Ella Little-Collins House is located at 72 Dale Street in Roxbury and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was purchased in 1941 by Ella-Little Collins, Malcolm X’s sister, for her family. Malcolm X, known at the time as Malcolm Little, moved in with her that year. He lived in the home during his formative teenage years. Learn more about the City landmark of the civil rights activist.
What street may have inspired Dream Street?
While there is no confirmed location, the book mentions Humboldt Avenue intersecting Dream Street:
“Yusef waits for his brother Biko at the corner of Humboldt Avenue and Dream Street. He’s thinking about how their mom always says, ‘Don’t leave the house without your crown.’”
Check out where this spot from the book is on the map!
Activity
Make a collage of your Dream Street, like Ekua Holmes’s collage illustrations in the book!
What is collage?
A collage is a piece of art that is created using various materials, such as photographs, newspaper or magazine clippings, or different kinds of paper, wood, or cloth that are attached to a larger surface (for example, a piece of cardstock or construction paper). Some collages are more abstract, while others create scenes like the illustrations in Dream Street.
Get creative! Your collage can be made up of whatever you think brings to life your own Dream Street.
Map from the Boston Public Library collection.
Map from the Boston Public Library collection.
Ekua Holmes on Collage
Watch Ekua Holmes talk about moments and memories that influence her art, related to her July ‘21 - January ‘22 exhibition titled “Paper Stories, Layered Dreams” at MFA Boston.
A collage taken from Dream Street, illustrated by Ekua Holmes.
Meet the Illustrator
Ekua Holmes also grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts. In her Dream Street collage illustrations, she reflects on the neighborhood friends and family that gave her encouragement and inspiration. Holmes is the acclaimed bestselling illustrator of several award-winning picture books, including Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, which won both a Caldecott Honor and Robert Sibert Honor Award, as well as the Coretta Scott King—John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award.
She has received the Coretta Scott King Award for two other picture books, The Stuff of Stars and Out of Wonder, which was also a New York Times bestseller. The New York Times has described Ekua’s artwork as “a harmonious riot of color, texture, and pattern.” Holmes still resides in Roxbury.
Meet the Author
Tricia Elam Walker based the neighborhood in Dream Street on her childhood neighborhood in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where she grew up alongside the illustrator of this book—her cousin Ekua Holmes. Tricia’s debut picture book, Nana Akua Goes to School, received four starred reviews and was praised by the Wall Street Journal for capturing a “complex vulnerability that every child feels.”
She is also the author of an adult novel, Breathing Room, under the name Patricia Elam, and has written for National Public Radio, the Washington Post, Essence, and HuffPost. After practicing law for sixteen years, Tricia is now an assistant professor of creative writing at Howard University. She lives in Takoma Park, Maryland.