Congratulations to Lee & Low author Juan Felipe Herrera who was named a 2024 MacArthur Fellow!
Juan Felipe Herrera is a poet, educator, and writer uplifting Chicanx culture and amplifying shared experiences of solidarity and empowerment.
The MacArthur Fellowship is a $800,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more.
Discover Children’s Books by Juan Felipe Herrera
Ezra Jack Keats Writer Award Winner 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.
At his new school or on the soccer field, all everyone wants to know is why Tomasito is in a wheelchair. His Papi gives Tomasisto a new pet to make him smile, but this bird is a little bit different from the rest. Before long, this boy-bird team discovers that there’s more than one way to fly-on or off the soccer field-and that those cheers Tomasito hears from the sidelines just might be for him.
Every Sunday Juanito helps his grandmother sell old clothes beneth the rainbow-colored tents at the remate, the flea market. There, Juanito and his friends romp from booth to booth, fulfilling Grandma’s vision of the remate as a sharing community of friendly give-and-take.
What happens when a small girl suddenly starts turning green, as green as a cilantro leaf, and grows to be fifty feet tall? She becomes Super Cilantro Girl, and can overcome all obstacles, that's what! Award-winning writer Juan Felipe Herrera taps into the wellsprings of his imagination to address and transform the concerns many first-generation children have about national borders and immigrant status.
Juanito is bewildered by the new school, and he misses the warmth of country life. Everything he does feels upside down. He eats lunch when it’s recess; he goes out to play when it’s time for lunch; and his tongue feels like a rock when he tries to speak English. But a sensitive teacher and loving family help him to find his voice and make a place for himself in this new world through poetry, art, and music.
Check out this special collection that includes four Juan Felipe Herrera picture books for young readers from our Children's Book Press imprint.
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.
