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 stories and his calling the doves. For Juan Felipe, the farmworker road was also the beginning of his personal road to becoming a writer.
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Juan Felipe Herrera is one of the foremost Mexican American poets writing today. He has received the prestigious Ezra Jack Keats Award among others. In addition to teaching full time at the University of California at Riverside, he also travels throughout the United States conducting readings and theater and writing workshops for students of all ages. Creative writing, multi-media, theater games, and topics on culture and change are typical features in his workshops.
Elly Simmons is an internationally-exhibited painter. Her first picture book for Children's Book Press, Magic Dogs of the Volcanoes by Manlio Argueta was highly praised for its rich colors and magical imagery. Elly's art has been praised as being an extraordinary blend of her political passion and artistic complexity. She lives with her family in Lagunitas, California.
• 1997 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award
• Hungry Mind Review's "Children's Books of Distinction" Award Winner
• 1996 International Reading Association Teachers' Choice
• Américas Award Honor Book
• 1995 Smithsonian Notable Book
• Cooperative Children's Book Center Choice
• School Library Journal's "Best Books of 1995"
"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
"The combination of a beautiful text and radiant paintings makes Calling the Doves an excellent bilingual picture book." —School Library Journal
"This picture book is strongly recommended for use in migrant programs and by teachers of bilingual or ESL classes." —MultiCultural Review
"Color pencil and acrylic paintings express the warmth and security felt by a child growing up in a loving household." —CCBC Choices
