From the author of "Local News" comes a touching and honest novel about a young Mexican-American boy's coming of age in the shadow of the Vietnam War. Jesse and his brother, Abel, have plans for their lives--to rise above poverty and desolation by furthering their eductions.
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Gr 7-10-By Gary Soto. Jesse and his brother work as fieldhands to pay for their community college courses. But the path to a good education isn't going to be an easy one for these two Mexican-Americans. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
From: Reed Elsevier Inc.
Copyright Reed Business Information
Gr. 10-12. To escape a home dominated by his alcoholic stepfather, 17-year-old Jesse abruptly leaves high school, moves into an apartment with his older brother, Abel, and takes classes at Fresno City College. It is 1968, and the brothers face both the threat20of being drafted and the daily grind of their poverty. Racial and class prejudice limit their employment opportunities to field labor, and they pick melons, oranges, or cotton, depending on the season. Soto skillfully reveals the truth about the brothers' lives through details: in a particularly wrenching scene, they try hitchhiking to Pismo Beach20for their spring break. Stranded for several days along the road, they shiver together through the night, never reaching the ocean. Jesse is artistically gifted and shy around girls; his struggles to communicate with girls, to date, and to succeed both socially and academically in school transcend the specifics of race and class. But Soto's story of a particular Mexican American boy in Fresno, California, during the height of the Vietnam War is rich in the details of Jesse's life and culture--his friendships with other Mexican Americans, his involvement in Caesar Chavez's farm workers' movement, his struggles to find himself and a meaningful life in spite of the limits placed on him by poverty and prejudice. All in all, a highly readable novel. ~--Merri Monks
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Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, and raised in Fresno California. He graduated from Roosevelt High School and attended Fresno City College, graduating in 1974 with an English degree. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including The Nation, Plouqhshares, The Iowa Review, Ontario Review and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in Poets in Person. He is one of the youngest poets to appear in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.
Soto has received the Discovery-The Nation Prize, the U.S. Award of the International Poetry Forum, The California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award twice, a Recogniton of Merit from the Claremont Graduate School for Baseball in April, the Silver Medal from The Commonwealth Club of California, and the Tomás Rivera Prize, in addition to fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts twice, and the California Arts Council.
For ITVS, he produced the film The Pool Party, which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal. Soto wrote the libretto for an opera titled Nerd-landia for the The Los Angeles Opera. In 1999 he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes. He serves as Young People's Ambassador for the California Rural Legal Assistance and the United Farm Workers of America.
Soto is the author of ten poetry collections for adults, with New and Selected Poems a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His recollections Living Up the Street received a Before Columbus Foundation 1985 American Book Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
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