Ode to my Shoes By Francisco X. Alarcon (Grade 1-3)

Francisco X. Alarcón was a gay, Chicano educator and poet. While he was born in California, he grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico. He wrote for both children and adults and he gained recognition because he was one of the few Chicano poets to mostly wrote in Spanish. Alarcón love for writting formed when he about about fifteen, when he would transcirbe his grandmother's song. During his life, he wrote fourteen volumes of poetry, published seven children books and taught at the University of California where he directed the Spanish For Native Speakers Program. He won an American Book Award and was nominated for several others, including Pura Belpré Award for Writin,g, lambda literary Award for Gay Mens Poetry and Jane Addams Children Book Award. He sadly past awer due to cancer in 2016 when we was 61 years old.