Gary Soto

A collection of eleven short stories focusing on the everyday adventures of Hispanic young people growing up in Fresno, California.

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

When Miata leaves on the school bus the skirt that she is to wear in a dance performance, she needs all her wits to get it back without her parents' finding out that she has lost something yet again.

On his thirteenth birthday, Ronnie woke up feeling like a chimp—all long armed, big eared, and gangly. He's been muddling through each gawky day since. Now his best friend, Joey, has turned thirteen, too—and after Joey humiliates himself in front of a cute girl, he climbs a tree and refuses to come down. So Ronnie sets out to woo the girl on Joey's behalf. After all, teenage chimps have to stick together.

Acclaimed author Gary

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In a prose that is so beautiful it is poetry, we  see the world of growing up and going somewhere  through the dust and heat of Fresno's industrial  side and beyond: It is a boy's coming of age in the  barrio, parochial school, attending church, public  summer school, and trying to fall out of love so he  can join in a Little League baseball team.
  His is a clarity that rings...

In a Mexican setting, this fable tells of an old fool's adventures on the way to a barbecue. Misunderstanding his wife's instructions, an old man sets out for a party with a door on his back. This humorous tale is about an old man who cannot seem to listen to his wife. As she leaves for a barbecue, she reminds him to bring "el puerco"--The pig that will be roasted as a main dish. He later wonders why she wants him to bring "la puerta"-the door-but...

Chato decides to throw a "pachanga" for his friend Novio Boy, who has never had a birthday party.

Teresa loves to show off her shiny, new, pedal-powered lowrider car from Grandpa, but the toy soon looks old when she neglects it. Contains some Spanish vocabulary.

Fourteen-year-old Lincoln Mendoza, an aspiring basketball player, must come to terms with his divided loyalties when he moves from the Hispanic inner city to a white suburban neighborhood.

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.