Calling the Doves / El canto de las palomas

by Juan Felipe Herrera, Elly Simmons (Illustrator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780892391660
Publisher:	Lee & Low Books
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Edition description:	Bilingual Edition
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	84,009
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 9.75(h) x 0.50(d)
Language:	Spanish
Lexile:	AD910L (what's this?)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Juan Herrera is an acclaimed poet and children's book author. His first children's book, Calling the Doves, won the prestigious Ezra Jack Keats Award, and another book, The Upside Down Boy, was made into a musical for young audiences in 2004. He teaches at California State University, Fresno.

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.

Editorial Reviews

"The combination of a beautiful text and radiant paintings makes Calling the Doves an excellent bilingual picture book." — School Library Journal

"A welcome alternative to the usually bleak portrayal of the migrant farmworker experience, this is an inspirational self-portrait of a loving Latino family. A poetic picture-book memoir that will add beauty to any literature. . . collection." — Booklist

Américas Award Commended Title - Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs

From the Publisher

Gr 1-3-A rich, personal narrative about growing up as a migrant farmworker. Herrera relates how he learned to love the land from his father, and poetry from his mother. He uses lyrical passages to portray everyday life, e.g., the ritual of breakfast: ``The sky was my blue spoon,/the wavy clay of the land was my plate.'' The colored-pencil and acrylic illustrations are bright and at times fanciful. Simmons's artwork brings to life Herrera's words, which are printed in both English and Spanish, and reinforces his imagery. The page layout varies, but is appropriate for the mood of the story. The combination of a beautiful text and radiant paintings makes Calling the Doves an excellent bilingual picture book.-Maria Redburn, Collier County Public Library, Immokalee, FL

School Library Journal