Gary Soto

Chato and Novio win a cruise but are disappointed to find that everyone else on board is a dog, and things go from bad to worse when the dogs party themselves sick and it is up to the cats to find help.

Luis is convinced that he will not perform well on the baseball field without following his unique pre-game ritual.

Maria tries on her mother's wedding ring while helping make tamales for a Christmas family get-together. Panic ensues when hours later, she realizes the ring is missing.

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

"Thirteen-year-old Jordan Mendoza has a huge crush on his classmate, Sierra, but he's never going to win her affections if he stays a C student and keeps embarrassing himself on the basketball court. And it doesn't help that his best friend, Antonio, likes to tease him about it all a little too much. But when Jordan dives into the waters of a dangerous irrigation canal to save a drowning puppy, he's suddenly got even more on his mind than kissing...

María tries on her mother's wedding ring while helping make tamales for a Christmas family get-together. Panic ensues when hours later, she realizes the ring is missing.

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.

Gary Soto, an award-winning poet, is renowned for getting at the heart of a young person's everyday life. In these eleven stories, performed with spice and energy by young actors Stephanie Diaz and Miguel Gongora, Soto again scores. With a sensitivity and humor born from his own experiences while growing up in California's Central Valley, the author brings to the surface issues such as success and failure, honesty and deceit, love and friendship.

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