This spring, for Jesse Byrd, was a dream come true.

The author, onetime college basketball player, and former Google employee was finishing up work on his next book, a middle-grade graphic novel titled Dream Warriors: A New World, when he welcomed his first son, Atlas, into the world—a few weeks earlier than expected.

Byrd wasted no time in introducing Atlas to the important things in life: his beloved Golden State Warriors and an even more beloved book from his own childhood. “The Phantom Tollbooth is my favorite children’s book,” Byrd says. “It’s the very first book that I read to my son, when he was a week old.”

The Phantom Tollbooth makes a cameo appearance in Dream Warriors (Paw Prints Publishing, October 28), the first installment in a planned series of middle-grade graphic novels, illustrated by Berto Santiago, about a group of beings who protect sleeping people from bad dreams. One of the new warriors is Khi, a 12-year-old boy who’s arrived in the magical land of Cloud 9 after being put into a coma by a bully—a bully he must now protect against nightmares. And Cloud 9 is about to come under attack from evildoers who want all people subjected to bad dreams.

Atlas is one of three children to whom Dream Warriors is dedicated, alongside two of Byrd’s godsons, Judah and Mekhi. Byrd says he wants these kids to see themselves reflected in the books they read. “When I think about legacy characters in children’s books, I can find more animals than Black kids,” he says. “Clifford the Big Red Dog. Mo Willems’ pigeon. Curious George. But legacy characters of color who are African American? There’s such a dearth of them.”

We recently spoke with Byrd about Dream Warriors by telephone from his home in Los Angeles, with Atlas babbling in the background. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you first become interested in writing?

I grew up in a writing household. My mom quit her job working for the government when I was 12 and went into writing adult fiction novels. Her first book didn’t work out, but she had an idea for another novel, and that one sold extremely well and got her a book deal. When I realized that I wanted to go into storytelling myself, I had this information from my mom’s journey. Even for someone who grew up in the business, it still took me seven years to find my agent, Regina Brooks of Serendipity Literary Agency. It was extremely hard work. Nothing was quick or overnight—and I’m genuinely grateful for that.

How did you come up with the idea for this book?

My great-grandmother on my dad’s side is Indigenous, and we’re still trying to track down exactly which nation she was a part of. One of the things I was thinking was, What if you took an actual dream catcher and made that into an action sequence? If the dream catcher’s function is to catch the bad dreams, then what would happen if that were a battle? What if the bad dreams didn’t want to get caught? Then it got into some other things from there—What is the core of bad dreams? What is the core of fear?—which is why the book ended up taking me 10 years. I wanted to make it accessible enough for kids to be able to enjoy it and grasp it without being too heady or preachy.

Khi’s backstory is heart-wrenching. Was it emotionally difficult to write about what happened to him before he ended up in Cloud 9?

I wanted it to be something where, in the end, Khi could also learn from his journey and get some perspective on it. There’s really no evil for evil’s sake. Everything comes from something; every behavior pattern comes from somewhere. I’m not saying that you need to justify [evil], but it does come from somewhere, and it’s often a place of hurt. I felt like Khi getting assigned to his bully would be a way to humanize the person that he had seen in one light the entire time.

What do you see as the value of graphic novels specifically?

Graphic novels are the most cinematic of any medium in print. Artists step into the brains of cinematographers, screenwriters, and directors for multiple panels per page and sometimes hundreds of pages per book. I can’t tell you how many of my favorite action movies I watched, on loop, to gain inspiration for fight choreo and heart-racing sequences. Then I wrote notes to the illustrator describing every duck, punch, roll, kick, escape, and capture. Eighty percent of what I wrote in the final script isn’t even intended to be read by the reader.

What makes graphic novels so limitless is that their appeal isn’t limited by their form. I imagine most of us would, at a glance, label picture books as being largely for kids. But in the way that animation isn’t exclusively for kids, the same goes for graphic novels.

How did you come to work with Berto Santiago?

Berto is a gift. He was a referral from another illustrator. My company, Jesse B. Creative, represents Mónica Paola Rodriguez. She had a friend, Berto, who traditionally works in animation for Disney and other places. When I looked at his work, I thought we’d be lucky to have someone who’s a real director, a cinematographer. You see it in the shots, the angles, the lighting, the way he captures drama and action and sadness. I write a line or a description about how the character feels in a certain panel, but it’s really up to him to depict that.

What was it like collaborating with Paw Prints Publishing and Moonbeam Literary & Media?

Paw Prints was an incredible collaborator on this book. They trusted us completely throughout the creative process and gave us as much time as possible to imagine, reimagine, develop, and deliver the final files. It was a gift to work with them.

Our synergy stems from our values and reason to be. Paw Prints has a mission to expand the range of stories for kids and families while preserving and increasing quality. Moonbeam was created to amplify stories and intellectual property in children’s media from artists around the world, prioritizing those who less often get the chance to break through and grow in print and visual media. We search for the “chefs” and help them develop their “dishes” to the point where they’re ready to go in front of a mass production and distribution partner, like Paw Prints, who will get those dishes out into the world. It’s symbiotic in the healthiest way.

Have you started work on the next installment yet?

Our team had a super-wild sprint getting this book in, especially with me having a son in the last leg and Berto falling under the weather coming down the homestretch. Now, we’re taking a little breather, but I’m super excited for Book 2. Obviously, the siege of Cloud 9 is underway. It took me a while to envision where this plane is going to land, but now I’m really excited.

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.