Calling the Doves / El Canto de Las Palomas - Paperback

by Juan Felipe Herrera (Author), Elly Simmons (Illustrator)

Bilingual English/Spanish. Calling the Doves is Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera's story of his migrant farmworker childhood.

Calling the Doves is poet Juan Felipe Herrera's story of his migrant farmworker childhood. In delightful and lyrical language, he recreates the joy of eating breakfast under the open sky, listening to Mexican songs in the little trailer house his father built, and celebrating with other families at a fiesta in the mountains. He remembers his mother's songs and poetry, and his father's stories and his calling the doves. For Juan Felipe, the farmworker road was also the beginning of his personal road to becoming a writer.

Author Biography

Juan Felipe Herrera is the son of farmworkers and a graduate of UCLA, Stanford, and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. For over fifty years, he has dedicated his life to poetry, community, art, and teaching. He served as the Poet Laureate of the United States and of California, and he's written more than thirty books across various genres. His awards include the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the LA Times Robert Kirsch Award, a Latino Hall of Fame Award, a Pushcart Prize, UCLA Chancellor's Medal, and the UC-Riverside Lifetime Achievement Award. He was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2024. He lives in Fresno, California, with his wife, poet Margarita Robles.

Elly Simmons is an internationally-exhibited painter. Her first picture book for Children's Book Press, Magic Dogs of the Volcanoes by Manlio Argueto, was highly praised for its rich colors and magnificent imagery. She lives with her family in Lagunitas, California.