Juan Felipe Herrera, a nationally recognized author who is the chair of the Chicano Latino Studies Department at Fresno State, is releasing his new Spanish-bilingual children’s book, “Coralito’s Bay” this weekend.

Herrera will read stories to children in English and Spanish in Salinas Sunday (June 20) from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Center Court of Northridge Mall (next to the Food Court).

The event is presented by the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s Multicultural Education for Resource Issues Threatening Oceans (MERITO) program, the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and Northridge Mall.

Coralito’s Bay is the story of a young boy’s underwater adventures through the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in his father’s adapted flower truck.

“We explore with Coralito’s the natural wonders living in the sanctuary, and how important ocean health is,” said Herrera, who was named to head Fresno State’s Chicano Studies program in 2001.

For the last thirty-five years, the award-winning artist has been writing, publishing, reading, performing, leading workshops, organizing literary broadsides, journals and publications in home communities and universities in California and the Pacific Northwest. Herrera has 19 books published and more than 100 articles, poems, reviews and essays in print.

For more information please contact Michelle Templeton at (831) 647-4211or email at michelle.templeton©noaa.gov

BACKGROUND — MERITO (from web site)

The mission of MERITO is to provide programs and products for our diverse citizens in order to increase their understanding of ocean-related threats within sanctuaries so that our entire community can actively contribute to ocean preservation resulting ultimately in full protection of our special marine resources.

The MERITO program is committed to providing programs and materials geared for our diverse multicultural communities. With limited resources, the initial focus for the first year was developing partnerships with Spanish-speaking residents and visitors, as they represent the largest multicultural population in the Central Coast region. With full funding and implementation of MERITO, we plan to address additional multilingual and multicultural communities that reside in the Central Coast area, and eventually the entire California region.