New Releases by Gary Soto

This inspiring story of Jessie De La Cruz, the United Farmer Workers, and la Causa is told as only Gary Soto—novelist, essayist, poet, and himself a field laborer during his teens—can tell it, with respect, empathy, and deep compassion for the working poor. A field worker from the age of five, Jessie knew poverty, harsh working conditions, and the exploitation of Mexicans and all poor people. Her response was to take a stand. She joined the fledgling United Farm Workers union and, at Cesar Chavez''s request, became its first woman recruiter. She also participated in strikes, helped ban the crippling short-handle hoe, became a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, testified before the Senate, and met with the Pope. Jessie''s life story personalizes an historical movement and shows teens how an ordinary woman became extraordinary through her will to make change happen, not just for herself but for others.

A collection of poetry by Chicano poet Gary Soto.

A hip, funny, Latino rendition of Grease, this play features three cool muchachos who come to the aid of Martin, a chicano nerd who loves a beautiful, popular girl, Ceci, from afar.With the help of his friends, Martin changes his miage and impresses Ceci and her friends, without letting on who he is. This is a problem for Ceci, because, in the meantime, she''s transformed herself into a Chicana nert to win the heard of her secret love--Martin. A totally modern, totally cool tale of teenage romance.

Hector and his best friend Mondo enjoy many exciting adventures when they take a six-day bike trip from their East Los Angeles neighborhood to the Santa Monica beach during summer vacation.

Misunderstanding his wife''s instructions, an old man sets out for a party with a door on his back.

Maya, the flower girl, describes a Mexican American wedding through snapshots of the day''s events, beginning with the procession to the altar and ending with her sleeping after the dance.

A collection of short stories about Mexican American youth growing up in California''s Central Valley.

El autor, nacido en California y de ascendencia mexicana, con varias obras publicadas, escribe especialmente sobre los mexicano-americanos. Este entretenido libro, dirigido especialmente a niños entre los seis y los ocho años, hará reír y gozar a los pequeños con la divertida historia que relata los pormenores que ocurren cuando un hombre anciano no escucha a su mujer. La mujer, quién se dirige hacia la barbacoa le pide a su marido le traiga el puerco, el cuál será asado para luego ser degustado como plato principal. El anciano confundido, reflexiona preguntándose a sí mismo el por qué su mujer le habrá pedido que le lleve la puerta, y sin más toma la toma en lugar del cerdo y se la lleva a su esposa. La obra está deliciosamente ilustrada y muestra como los errores pueden transformarse en hechos divertidos.

In order to look more like his father, Ricky borrows a mustache from a school costume, but when he loses it on the way home his father comes up with a replacement.

Ganador del premio de ilustración Pura Belpré 1996 The Spanish edition of a modern classic. Chato can''t believe his luck. Not only is he the coolest low-riding cat in East L.A., but his brand-new neighbors are the plumpest, juciest, tastiest-looking family of mice to move into the barrio in a long time. So Chato and his best friend, Novio Boy, get out the pots and pans, the tortillas and the beans--everything you''d need for a welcoming feast, except for the main dish, and the guests of honor. Of course, in Chato''s mind they are one and the same thing. But the mice are bringing a surprise guest of their own, who may be more than a cool cat can swallow.

Ages 12 and up.

Catch election fever when fifth grader Miata Ramirez runs for president against school prankster, Rudy Herrera. Miata and her running mate, Ana, mean business. But the boys are loud and get attention. With time running out, the girls try to think of how to quickly change their image before the election.

Ninth-grade Rudy has asked eleventh-grade Patricia out on a date, and to his amazement she has agreed. Now Rudy has to come up with the money, the poise, and the conversation to carry it off. This one-act play, by turns heartwarming and heart-wrenching, follows Rudy from his desperate search for guidance from family and friends through the hilarities of the date itself, all the way to its successful conclusion. “To present a new kind of coming-of-age story, a play is the way.”--American Bookseller

Maria esta ayudando con la preparacion de los tamales de Navidad y decide calarse el anillo de diamantes de su mama ... pero no descubre que el anillo a desaparecido hasta horas despues.

Soto writes with a pure sweetness free of sentimentality that is almost extraordinary in modern American poetry. -- Andrew Hudgins. Soto insists on the possibility of a redemptive power, and he celebrates the heroic, quixotic capacity for survival in human beings and the natural world. -- Publishers Weekly. Soto has it all -- the learned craft, the intrinsic abilities with language, a fascinating autobiography, and the storyteller''s ability to manipulate memories into folklore. -- Library Journal.

Twenty-five poems about the pleasures and woes that Mexican American children experience growing up.

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.

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

This modern classic celebrates the tradition of tamales and family bonding at Christmas. Christmas Eve started out so perfectly for Maria. Snow had fallen and the streets glittered. Maria''s favorite cousins were coming over and she got to help make the tamales for Christmas dinner. It was almost too good to be true when her mother left the kitchen for a moment and Maria got to try on her beautiful diamond ring . . . This is the story of a treasure thought to be lost in a batch of tamales; of a desperate and funny attempt by Maria and her cousins to eat their way out of trouble; and the warm way a family pulls together to make it a perfect Christmas after all. Also available in Spanish as ¡Qué montón de tamales!

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.

An exuberant celebration of everyday life from an award-winning team.

Fourteen-year-old Mexican American Lincoln Mendoza spends a summer with a host family in Japan, encountering new experiences and making new friends.

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.

From "Worry at the end of the month" to "Good morning, Fresno," Soto writes of the Chicano experience and of life as all live it.

Eight-year-old Nicole, who is part Mexican, is amazed when her cat Pip starts speaking in Spanish.