Gary Soto

To get the "ratoncitos," little mice who have moved into the barrio, to come to come to his house, Chato the cat prepares all kinds of good food: fajitas, frijoles, salsa, enchiladas, and more.

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.

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

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.

After being teased about his brand new loafers, Rigo puts them away for so long he grows out of them.

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.

A collection of thirteen short stories about the ups and downs of being thirteen years old.

Meet Marisol Luna, a girl who was born to dance. The family is moving to the Chicago suburbs, and Marisol learns that her new neighborhood doesn't have a dance studio. Instead of giving up, resourceful Marisol is determined to keep dancing. With the help of two friends, she figures out a way to combine her old world with a renewed commitment to stretch and try her hardest.

Two best friends have been through everything together, and they plan to keep it that way.

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...