Guadalupe Garcia McCall, 2012 Pura Belpre Award Winner will be at the Central Library on May 5, at 1 pm. Below is her bio and a poem.

We hope that Reforma members can attend and can also help us spread the word.

I was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. My family immigrated to the United States when I was six years old. I grew up in Eagle Pass, a small, border town in South Texas. Eagle Pass is the setting of my debut novel in verse, Under the Mesquite, released in the fall of 2011 from Lee & Low Books. After high school, I went off to Alpine, in West Texas, to study to become a teacher. I have a BA in Theatre Arts and English from Sul Ross State University. There, I met my husband, Jim. We have three grown sons, James, Steven, and Jason. We’ve lived in Somerset for several years now. We love living the simple life in the country, where I get to be close to what I love, nature.

The 411 on The Muse

By Guadalupe Garcia McCall

My mother told me
That when I was an infant
I held up my hands to the sunlight
And stared at them for hours, turning
Them this way and that like brown maple leaves.
That’s when she knew I was special,
That someday I would create
Great things with my hands.
My father told me I didn’t
Talk until I was five years old.
That I knew how to get what I wanted
Without ever having to say a word. And
When I finally spoke, it was in complete sentences.
That’s when he knew I was very special,
That someday I would talk the Rio
Grande into changing course.
When I went to college, I
Wanted to live up to their great
Expectations. So I took drama classes.
I spoke in metaphors & scribbled poems that
Danced and shone in the sun like raindrops on rainbows.
But when I became a teacher, I forgot about
Being special. I thought only
Of being significant,
About making a difference,
Because teaching is not just a job.
Teaching is what makes me whole.