When he was very young, Juan Felipe Herrera picked chamomile flowers in windy fields and let tadpoles swim across his hands in a creek. He slept outside and learned to say goodbye to his amiguitos each time his family moved to a new town. He went to school and taught himself to read and write English and filled paper pads with rivers of ink as he walked down the street after school.

And when he grew up, he became the United States Poet Laureate—and read his poems aloud on the steps of the Library of Congress. If he could do all of that…what could any kid do?