Gary Soto

Ten stories portray some of the struggles and hopes of young Mexican Americans.

Gary Soto writes that when he was five "what I knew best was at ground level." In this lively collection of short essays, Soto takes his reader to a ground-level perspective, resreating in vivid detail the sights, sounds, smells, and textures he knew growing up in his Fresno, California, neighborhood. The "things" of his boyhood tie it all together: his Buddha "splotched with gold," the taps of hi...Gary Soto writes that when he was five "what I knew best was at ground level." In this lively collection of short essays, Soto takes his reader to a ground-level perspective, resreating in vivid detail the sights, sounds, smells, and textures he knew growing up in his Fresno, California, neighborhood. The "things" of his boyhood tie it all together: his Buddha "splotched with gold," the taps of his shoes and the "engines of sparks that lived beneath my soles," his worn tennies smelling of "summer grass, asphalt, the moist sock breathing the defeat of basesall." The child's world is made up of small things--small, very important things.

Chato and Novio win a cruise but are disappointed to find that everyone else on board is a dog, and things go from bad to worse when the dogs party themselves sick and it is up to the cats to find help.

Children and teens from all walks of life deal with the dramas of growing up.

"Gary Soto is a poet and, in a previous writing life, an author of children's literature. Moreover, he is an essayist whose works have been celebrated for their openness and vivid image-making. In this volume, the poet again offers prose that is robust, confessional, and peculiar in its observations. Soto's world is quirky, here captured in a series of bite-sized narratives full of humor and insight. He befriends daffodils, praises theater and tribute bands, and snuggles up with his wife of almost forty years. Like many boomers, he laments his sense of failure. LIke them, he shrugs off that failure to recast his remaining years"--Back cover.

"Twenty years ago, when Silver Mendez was the youthful author of two published books of poetry, he bragged that he was the first Chicano to write in complete sentences. His career has been going steadily downhill ever since. But a letter from Spain may change his luck. Silver is invited to Madrid to participate in a conference on Chicano literature. Now all he needs is money - for a plane ticket, a new passport, and a place to stay. And oh, yes - he needs to be able to send e-mail to Spain. Silver, a poet without a job, a home, or even a typewriter to his name, has his work cut out for him. His old friend Al Sanchez, a body and fender man who used to play drums in a rock band, is tapped out and angry because Silver never repaid Al's last loan. But even in the face of these imposing obstacles, Silver is determined not to miss this chance at the life a poet should live."--BOOK JACKET.

With her feet bare and her secondhand gown splattered with mud, Ella's first day of Princess School is off to a lousy start.

Twenty-one poems about growing up in an Hispanic neighborhood, highlighting the delights in such everyday items as sprinklers, the park, the library, and pomegranates.

At age thirteen, best friends Ronnie and Joey suddenly feel like chimps--long armed, big eared, and gangly--and when the coach humiliates Joey in front of a girl, he climbs up a tree and refuses to come down.

After unexpectedly falling in love with a "nerdy" boy, fourteen-year-old Marisa works to change her life by transferring to another school, altering some of her behavior, and losing weight.

Poet Gary Soto captures the voices of young people as they venture toward their first kiss, brood over bruised hearts, and feel the thrill of first love.

When ten-year-old Rudy breaks an older boy's Discman at a baseball game, he and his friend Alex come up with a variety of ways to make money to pay for a new one.