Gary Soto

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.

Chato decides to throw a "pachanga" for his friend Novio Boy, who has never had a birthday party.

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

After saving a drowning puppy while dealing with a huge crush on his classmate Sierra, thirteen-year-old Jordan Mendoza nurses the abandoned puppy back to health and wonders who threw her into the canal and if there are more puppies needing rescue.

Fourteen-year-old Lincoln Mendoza, an aspiring basketball player, must come to terms with his divided loyalties when he moves from the Hispanic inner city to a white suburban neighborhood.

A poignant, humorous collection by acclaimed poet Gary Soto The fleeting emotions of teenagers, as changeable as the weather, ring true in these emotionally resonant poems. Told from the point of view of both boys and girls, narrators of various ethnicities fall in love for the first time, pine over crushes, and brood over broken hearts. Tender, lighthearted, and surprising, this collection will capture teens, tweens, and anyone who remembers what...

Children and teens from all walks of life deal with the dramas of growing up.

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

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

When nineteen-year-old Eddie drops out of college, he struggles to find a place for himself as a Mexican American living in a violence-infested neighborhood of Fresno, California.