With real wit and heart, Gary Soto takes readers into the lives of young people in ten funny, heartbreaking tales. Meet Carolina, who writes to Miss Manners for help not just with etiquette but with bigger messes in her life; Javier, who knows the stories his friend Veronica tells him are lies, but can’t find a way to prove it–and many other kids, each caught up in the difficulties of figuring out what it means to be alive.
In this unique collection of short stories, the small events of daily life reveal big themes—love and friendship, youth and growing up, success and failure. Calling on his own experiences of growing up in California’s Central Valley, poet Gary Soto brings to life the joys and pains of young people everywhere. The smart, tough, vulnerable kids in these stories are Latino, but their dreams and desires belong to all of us.
Experiencing first love, dealing with crushes, and mending a broken heart are some of the topics of love and life captured in these poems, told from the point of view of young adults of both sexes and diverse ethnicities.
Julian Rodriguez is on a mission for the Mothership. He’s been sent to Earth to study human lifeforms and their bizarre habits–from their disgusting diet (orange sticks named carrots, flavorless liquid called water, and the revolting substance known as vegi-dogs) to their repressive treatment of their young (forcing them to carry out menial tasks known as chores, withholding access to the great cultural masterpieces called cartoons). When Julian’s Maternal Unit assigns a hideous task, it’s nearly too much for the hardened space veteran to bear–but he finds his courage at last. * “First in what readers will hope will be a robust series, this hybrid of fiction and graphic novel dusts off a favorite conceit with a slick swipe of edgy visuals and tart commentary….It’s impossible to read this without laughing.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Hector Robles has spent his sixteen years in the projects of El Paso trying to stay unnoticed. His peaceful obscurity is shattered when his impulsive brother challenges the leader of a gang called the Discípulos. Suddenly Hector is drawn into their world of violence and hopelessness. When a marker is placed on his life, Hector tries to escape by going away to a school for students with troubled pasts. But it isn’t easy to function when he’s paralyzed by the fear that they’ll find him, even there. Ultimately, by confronting external threats and the internal pain of his memories and mistakes, Hector begins to understand what manhood really means.
When Luís’s father joins the army shortly after the start of World War II, Luís’s entire life changes. His mother decides to return to the dusty New Mexican village where she and her husband grew up. In Los Angeles, Luís had struggled to find a place in his ethnically diverse neighborhood and had been intimidated into ending a close friendship with a Jewish boy. In Las Manos, everyone is Hispanic and Catholic like Luís, but the way of life seems backward and slow. Luís and his mother stay in a cramped bungalow with his dying grandfather and sullen grandmother, and Luís must share a bed with his uncle, a priest. Then, just as Luís begins to feel more comfortable in Las Manos, he learns an settling fact-his family is not Catholic after all. They are Jewish, a secret that has been kept for generations. Angry and confused, Luís realizes he must confront his feelings about family, religion, and friends, and ultimately make his own decision about who he is. Glossary of Spanish words.
Marisol has always loved to dance–from the salsa at family parties to the boom boxes on Loisada Avenue. Then she wins a scholarship to ballet school and discovers an inspiring new world of beauty and discipline. When violence erupts in Alphabet City, Marisol’s dream starts to slip away. To keep dancing she must make heartbreaking choices–perhaps impossible ones.
Hector A. Torres conducted these interviews with today’s popular Chicano/a writers, asking each about language and life between languages, about the creative drive that has guided them in their craft and commits them to their art. In sharing their responses, Torres reveals a brief biography of each author and a concise examination of their writings. Taking their stories and essays individually and collectively, Torres explains how each author reiterates issues that have concerned Mexican Americans since at least 1848. Chicano/a authors know that an abundance of politics can spoil a story, as can too little. The writers included here span historical terrain, first, under the shadow of Manifest Destiny and, then, under the America’s imperial sovereignty stance. Interviewees include Rolando Hinojosa (“I Reflect the Way Valleyites Act and React”), Arturo Islas (“I Don’t Like Labels and Categories”), Erlinda Gonzales-Berry (“On the New Mexican Borderlands”), Gloria Anzaldúa (“The Author Never Existed”), Ana Castillo (two separate interviews), Sandra Cisneros (two separate interviews), Pat Mora (“I Was Always at Home in Language”), Richard Rodriguez (“I Don’t Think I Exist”), Demetria Martinez (“To Speak as Global Citizens”), and Kathleen Alcalá (“To Tell the Counternarratives”).
Seventeen-year-old Chloé Rodriguez, who inherited her uncle’s beloved Harley after his death, spends the subsequent year trying to pass chemistry, wondering whether she should look for her birth parents, and beginning an unlikely relationship with her chemistry tutor, while also trying to figure out how she really feels about the boy who has been her best friend since they were children.