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Summary
Summary
A collection of poems in English and Spanish discusses imagination, dreams, family, and growing up in California and in Mexico.
Author Notes
Francisco X. Alarcón was born in Los Angeles, California on February 21, 1954. He grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico. He received an undergraduate degree from California State University at Long Beach and a MA from Stanford University. He was the author of 14 collections of poetry for both children and adults.
His collections of poetry for adults include Body in Flames/Cuerpo en Llamas; De Amor Oscuro/Of Dark Love; From the Other Side of Night/Del Otro Lado de la Noche: New and Selected Poems; Ce Uno One: Poemas para el Nuevo Sol/Poems for the New Sun; Borderless Butterflies: Earth Haikus and Other Poems/Mariposas sin Fronteras: Haikus Terrenales y Otros Poemas; and Canto Hondo/Deep Song. Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation won the American Book Award. He also received the 1984 Chicano Literary Prize, the 1993 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and a Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association in 2002.
His collections of poetry for children include Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems/Los Angeles Andan en Bicicleta y Otros Poemas de Otoño and Iguana in the Snow and Other Winter Poems/Iguanas en la Nieve y Otros Poemas de Invierno. Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems/Jitomates Risuenos y Otros Poemas de Primavera won the National Parenting Publications Gold Award and From the Bellybutton of the Moon and Other Summer Poems/Del Ombligo de la Luna y Otros Poemas de Verano won the American Library Association's Pura Belpré Honor Award for Latino Literature.
He served as director of the Spanish for Native Speakers Program at the University of California at Davis, and taught for the Art of the Wild workshop and the California Poets in the Schools program. He died of cancer on January 15, 2016 at the age of 61.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-Alarcón has a knack for tapping into the experiences and emotions of childhood. This vibrant collection of 17 short, bilingual verses is about dreams-both the day and the night variety-as well as the hopes and aspirations of individuals, families, and humanity at large. Rooted in the everyday world of children, the poems feature a family garden, a photo album, favorite fruits, going to school, and household chores. They also touch on larger life lessons, protecting the environment, and dreams for the future. With simple elegance, the verses read aloud beautifully and the poetic images are at once accessible and inspiring. The boldly colored, mixed-media artwork serves as a perfect complement. The art is varied and engaging, and the layout at times displays the Spanish text on top and the English underneath; at other times, side-by-side on the page; and still others on opposite sides of a spread. Overall, this is a dreamy choice for schools and libraries. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
These seventeen bilingual poems, in both Spanish and English, celebrate family, friends, and the Latino experience. The collection has a strong social conscience, but a few of the pieces seem like didactic exercises. The stylized illustrations provide a rich palette heavy on blues and green. Alarcon's introductory autobiographical note encourages readers to ""keep on dreaming for good! (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
In these free verse, mostly unpunctuated poems, Alarcón explores the world of both sleeping and waking dreams and his hope for a better world of tolerance and peace. Family members working together in their garden constitute a vision of cooperative society; people who exclude the dreams of others create a nightmare. In one poem, the young narrator imagines buffalo roaming free, whales singing opera and people living together peacefully. In another, he wants to be a happy onion who makes people sing instead of cry. Alarcón's short lines are worked around Barragán's richly colored, cut-and-paste style illustrations, which use silhouettes, small but exaggerated details and childishly thick figures to embody Alarcón's utopian longings. Includes both English and Spanish versions of the poems. (Poetry. 7-11) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 3-5. In an inspiring bilingual collection of short poems, Alarcon shares his dreams of peace, community building, and a bright future for children of all cultures. The works are charming in their simplicity and transcend cliche with beautifully unsophisticated imagery (I feel / like one / happy onion. ). The rhythm and cadence work well in both the Spanish and the English entries, and Barragan's illustrations are a fine complement to the text. Flat, bright colors and simple shapes give them the look of classroom paper cutouts, but the compositions are as intricate as Mexican mural paintings. The book delivers a strong message with a very gentle touch, a rare quality that will appeal to children as well as adults. --Stella Clark Copyright 2005 Booklist
