Baseball in April and Other Stories
by Gary Soto
from Harcourt Paperbacks
Too Many Tamales
by Gary Soto
from Putnam Juvenile
Maria is feeling so grown-up, wearing her mother's apron and helping to knead the masa for the Christmas corn tamales. Her mother even let Maria wear some perfume and lipstick for the big family celebration that evening. When her mother takes off her diamond ring so it won't become coated with the messy masa, Maria decides that life would be perfect if she could wear the ring, too. Trouble begins when she sneakily slips the sparkly ring on her thumb and resumes her kneading. Uh oh. It is not until later that night, after all the tamales have been cooked and after all her cousins and relatives have arrived, that Maria suddenly realizes what must have happened to the precious ring. Ed Martinez's warm oil paintings celebrate the riches of South American Christmas colors--adobe reds, dusty gold, lacey whites, and rain-forest greens. Martinez also has a gift for capturing children's animated expressions, especially when Maria begs her cousins to help her find the missing ring by secretly eating the enormous stack of steaming tamales! Gary Soto's delightful Christmas-spirit closure will relieve young readers who empathize with the negligent Maria. Grown-ups, too, will appreciate this playful reminder about the virtues of forgiveness and family togetherness. (Ages 4 and older) --Gail Hudson
Maria was feeling very grown-up on Christmas Eve as she helped her mother prepare the tamales for Christmas dinner. When she slipped her mother's diamond ring onto her finger, she only meant to wear it for a minute. But suddenly, the ring was gone, and there were 24 tamales that just might contain the missing ring. "A warm family story that combines glowing art with a well-written text to tell of a girl's dilemma."--School Library Journal, starred review.
Buried Onions
by Gary Soto
from Harcourt Paperbacks
Eddie can always smell onions in the air--the sharp bitter odor of hopelessness and anger that haunts the poor side of Fresno. "I had a theory about those vapors, which were not released by the sun's heat but by a huge onion buried under the city. This onion made us cry. Tears leapt from our eyelashes and stained our faces." Eddie tries to escape from the poverty and gang society that surrounds him by taking vocational classes and staying away from his old "cholos," (gang friends). But when his cousin is killed, his aunt urges him to seek out and punish the murderer. To avoid the pressure building in his neighborhood, Eddie takes a landscaping job in an affluent suburb. But this too goes awry when his boss's truck is stolen while in his care. In the end, with his money gone and a dangerous gang member stalking him, Eddie's only choice is to join the military and hope that they can give him a better future than the one Fresno seems to offer.
There is no tidy closure--certainly no happy ending--to this bleak novel. But that is exactly what gives Buried Onions its strong, acidic flavor. Teens with a low tolerance for any type of pretense will appreciate Gary Soto's honesty in not trying to force a fairy-tale ending. In spare but always striking prose, Soto has written an unrelentingly grim story that teens will savor because it rings true. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert
Taking Sides
by Gary Soto
from Harcourt Paperbacks
A Summer Life
by Gary Soto
from Laurel Leaf
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.
The Afterlife
by Gary Soto
from Harcourt Paperbacks
Not many authors kill their main character on page two, but when Gary Soto does in The Afterlife the tactic results in a richly textured coming of age story. Chuy is a normal teenage guy, making his way in the barrios of Fresno, California, and hoping to impress a pretty girl. Carefully combing his hair in the restroom at Club Estrella, he only has a few moments to consider his "loverboy" strategy before his young life is (literally) cut short by a knife-wielding stranger who misinterprets a compliment.
Soon Chuy is floating above his bleeding body, embarking on a journey of personal exploration. As he drifts though his hometown (tightening his stomach muscles so as not to get blown off course) he manages to achieve many of the things he didnÂ’t when he was alive--recognizing how much he is loved by family and friends, saving a life, punishing a thug, and even falling in love (with a ghost-girl who has committed suicide).
Soto has a knack for particularly apt comparisons ("the sun rose pink as a scar," "laundry hung like the faded flags of defeated nations,"), which brings beauty and clarity to this dangerous world of cholos and cabrones (and if you donÂ’t know what those are, thereÂ’s a glossary in the back). Aside from a couple plot points left dangling, The Afterlife offers a tangibly detailed portrait of a young life worth living. (Ages 13 and older)--Brangien Davis
A funny, touching, and wholly original story by one of the finest authors writing for young readers today.
Living Up The Street
by Gary Soto
from Laurel Leaf
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 constantly through the  warmth and wry reality of these sometimes  humorous, sometimes tragic, always human remembrances.
Chato's Kitchen
by Gary Soto
from Putnam Juvenile
"Chato, a low-riding cat with six stripes, was slinking toward a sparrow when he heard the scrape of tiny feet coming from the yard next door." You get the idea. Chato is a sly, mustachioed "cool cat" from an East Los Angeles barrio. The tiny feet? Those belong to the new mice (ratoncitos) next door--"five mice the color of gray river rock," to be precise. Chato promptly invites them over for dinner, in exactly the sense you might fear.
"That Chato cat seems muy simpatico, very nice, I'm sure," says Papi mouse. The mice (being cheese lovers) spend the day making quesadillas for the fiesta, while Chato and his best friend Novio Boy busily prepare side dishes for a meal con ratoncitos. Instead of the anticipated gruesome ending, a surprise twist is in the works.
Gary Soto, author of Too Many Tamales, is brilliantly witty, and Chato's Kitchen--an ALA Notable Book and a Parents' Choice Award Winner--is truly marvilloso. Susan Guevera's comical, deliciously detailed, richly colored depictions of the creatures are priceless as well, earning her the 1996 Pura Belpre Award for Illustration. A culinary concoction that no youngster (or adult) will be able to resist. (Ages 4 to 8)
Chato is so happy to see that a family of mice has moved into the area, he decides to invite them over for dinner, but the mice know he has something else in mind and so bring one additional guest along. Reprint. AB. SLJ. PW. "
Chato and the Party Animals (Chato)
by Gary Soto
from Puffin
Chato has been a party animal since he was a kitten. So when he discovers that his best friend Novio Boy has never had a birthday party (being from the pound, he never even knew his mami), this cool cat from the barrio decides it's time to change all that. He calls his friend Sharkie, a DJ.
"Homecat," Chato meowed. "You awake?"The party plans are set, the cake (with mouse-colored frosting and "a couple of canaries on top") ordered, and the piñata made. Looks like the most happening shindig in town is ready to go... except "Que tonto!" (How dumb!) Chato forgot to invite the guest of honor! Novio Boy's buddies search the alleys and warm car fenders to no avail, and soon are reminiscing about their dearly departed ("Kidnapped! Lost!") homecat, who, as it turns out, has a surprise in store for them all!
"I am now, dude," Sharkie said.
"It's Novio Boy's birthday tomorrow," said Chato. "I want you to come and spin some oldies but goodies."
As in the award-winning Chato's Kitchen, Susan Guevara's modish paintings of these barrio beasts beg to be pored over, while Gary Soto's barrio-speak screams out to be read aloud. A brief glossary provides English meanings to the Spanish words scattered throughout. (Ages 5 to 9) --Emilie Coulter
Chato—the coolest cat in the barrio—loves to party. So when he learns that Novio Boy has never had a birthday party, Chato decides to throw him a surprise pachanga. He gets right to work—inviting everyone in the neighborhood, cooking up a feast, arranging for music and a piñata, and even ordering a special cake. Chato’s sure that he’s thought of everything. But when it comes time for the party, he realizes that he forgot the most important thing of all—Novio Boy! With a lively text featuring Spanish words throughout, and bright, bold artwork, this sequel to Chato’s Kitchen is truly a cause for celebration.
Cesar Chavez: A Hero for Everyone (Milestone Books)
by Gary Soto
from Aladdin
¡Viva la causa!
¡Viva César Chávez!
Up and down the San Joaquin Valley of California, and across the country, people chanted these words. Cesar Chavez, a migrant worker himself, was helping Mexican Americans work together for better wages, for better working conditions, for better lives.
No one thought they could win against the rich and powerful growers. But Cesar was out to prove them wrong -- and that he did.
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