A review by crystal_reading
Calling the Doves / El Canto de Las Palomas by Juan Herrera

4.0

Juan Felipe Herrera is the United States Poet Laureate so this was a great book to read for poetry month. In Calling the Doves/El canto de las palomas, Herrera shares about his childhood with a lyrical voice. Readers find out about the beauty of the land he lived in and the care and nurture he had from his parents. His parents loved the open sky and the tender earth. They taught him "that inside every word there can be kindness." His parents were migrant farmworkers and life was not easy. Herrera makes it clear though, that he appreciated many aspects of his childhood. His parents were storytellers and they filled the air with poetry, songs and stories. Juan Felipe Herrera shows the many ways in which his childhood was rich and how this shaped him and led him to poetry.