Gary Soto Books In Order

Chato Books In Order

  1. Chato’s Kitchen (1995)
  2. Chato and the Party Animals (2000)
  3. Chato Goes Cruisin’ (2005)
  4. Chato’s Day of Dead (2008)

Novels

  1. The Cat’s Meow (1987)
  2. Taking Sides (1991)
  3. Pacific Crossing (1992)
  4. The Pool Party (1993)
  5. Crazy Weekend (1994)
  6. The Skirt (1994)
  7. Summer on Wheels (1995)
  8. Boys at Work (1995)
  9. Off and Running (1996)
  10. Buried Onions (1997)
  11. Nickel and Dime (2000)
  12. Poetry Lover (2001)
  13. Amnesia in a Republican County (2003)
  14. The Afterlife (2003)
  15. Marisol (2004)
  16. Accidental Love (2006)
  17. Mercy on These Teenage Chimps (2007)
  18. When Dad Came Back (2011)

Collections

  1. Small Faces (1986)
  2. Baseball in April (1993)
  3. Local News (1993)
  4. Petty Crimes (1998)
  5. Help Wanted (2005)
  6. Facts of Life (2008)
  7. Hey, 13! (2011)

Plays

  1. Novio Boy (1997)
  2. Nerdlandia (1999)

Picture Books

  1. Tale of Sunlight (1978)
  2. Father Is a Pillow Tied to a Broom (1980)
  3. Too Many Tamales (1993)
  4. The Old Man and His Door (1996)
  5. Snapshots from the Wedding (1997)
  6. Big Bushy Mustache (1998)
  7. If the Shoe Fits (2002)
  8. Lucky Luis (2012)

Novellas

  1. Instant Winner (2013)
  2. Gabe (2019)

Non fiction

  1. Living Up the Street (1985)
  2. California Childhood (1988)
  3. Lesser Evils (1988)
  4. A Summer Life (1990)
  5. The Effects of Knut Hamsun On a Fresno Boy (2000)
  6. Jessie De La Cruz (2001)
  7. Cesar Chavez (2003)
  8. What Poets Are Like (2013)
  9. Why I Don’t Write Children’s Literature (2015)
  10. Meatballs for the People (2017)

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Gary Soto Books Overview

Chato’s Kitchen

Chato, the coolest cat in East L.A., and his buddy, Novio Boy, prepare to serve up a special housewarming party for their new neighbors, a family of mice, in which their guests are also the main course, but the mice bring along their own guest, Chorizo, the toughest dog in the barrio.

Chato and the Party Animals

Chato, the coolest cat in el barrio, loves to party but not his best buddy, Novio Boy. Birthday parties always make him blue. ‘I’m from the pound,’ he tells Chato. ‘I don’t know when I was born. I never knew my mami. I never even had a birthday party, or nothing.’So Chato plans the coolest surprise party for Novio Boy, inviting all of el barrio, and cooking up a storm. But he forgets the most important thing inviting Novio Boy! Luckily, just as everyone starts remembering all the things they used to love about their long lost friend, the birthday boy arrives with his own surprise himself!In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called Chato’s Kitchen ‘Wickedly funny…
Guevara’s cats are delicious send ups of barrio characters, and Soto’s words glisten with wit. Salud to this magical pairing of talents.’

Chato Goes Cruisin’

Chihuahua! What are two low riding cats to do when they sign up for a cruise and end up on a ship full of dogs? Chato and Novio Boy try to have fun, but they re miserable watching endless games of Bark at the Moon. Plus, the dogs get sick from all their running around and excessive consumption of milk bones. When the two cool cats go for help, they see the cruise they were meant to be on a catamaran full of cats and they have to decide whether to join the fun or be cats of their word. With extra storytelling in comic strips on each page, this ocean adventure is sure to garner the laughs and acclaim of Chato’s Kitchen and Chato and the Party Animals both ALA Notable Books.

The Cat’s Meow

Third grader Graciela becomes convinced that her cat, Pip, is able to speak Spanish when he looks at his empty bowl and appears to say, ‘Quiero m s, Graciela,’ in a story that introduces basic Spanish words and phrases.

Taking Sides

Lincoln Mendoza remains loyal to his former school’s basketball team, even after he moves from the barrio to the suburbs and plays for his new school s team. This touchingly realistic story explores the divided loyalties of a Hispanic basketball player who has recently moved from a poor neighborhood to a more affluent one…
. Soto masterfully conveys the Hispanic American experience. Publishers Weekly

Pacific Crossing

In Japan for the summer to practice the martial art of kempo, Lincoln sometimes feels like little more than a brown boy in a white gi. Yet with the help of his Japanese brother, Mitsuo, Lincoln sees that people everywhere, whether friend or kempo opponent, share passions much like his own for baseball, family traditions, and new friendships.

The Pool Party

Invited to Tiffany Perez’s pool party, Rudy Herrara longs to make a big impression on Tiffany and his classmates. By the author of Living up the Street.

Crazy Weekend

A ‘fun packed adventure’ VOYA by a gifted and popular storyteller. When Hector and his friend Mando, seventh graders, visit Uncle Julio, a photographer in Fresno, they have more excitement than they ever imagined. On a photo shoot in a rickety old plane, they spot an armored car heist, and Uncle Julio snaps some shots of the robbers. After they report what they saw, the two robbers decide they have to teach Hector and Mando a lesson. When the bumbling thugs meet up with the quick witted boys, the results are hilarious.

The Skirt

The Skirt IS gone. Miata Ramirez is scared and upset. She brought her forklorico skirt to show off at school and left it on the bus. It’s not just any skirt. This skirt belonged to Miata s mother when she was a child in Mexico. On Sunday, Miata and her dance group are going to dance forklorico. It s Friday afternoon. Miata doesn t want her parents to know she s lost something again. Can she find a way to rescue the precious skirt in time?Includes an afterword from the author.

Off and Running

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.

Buried Onions

On the mean streets of southeast Fresno, nineteen-year-old Eddie is just trying to get by. All he wants is to forget his violent past, hold down a job, and walk a straight line. But after his cousins murder, Eddie finds himselfslowly but inexorablydrawn back into the cycle of violence…
. Set against the backdrop of a city sweltering in the grip of poverty, crime, and unfulfilled dreams, this is the unforgettable story of a young man struggling to survive in a world spiraling out of control. Unrelenting…
unsparing…
A valuable tale, its one that makes no concessions. Kirkus ReviewsSotos clear, finely honed poets voice shines in this tale of barrio life in Fresno, California…
wholly believable. ALA Booklist

Nickel and Dime

‘I’m outta here! I got a future!’ crows Roberto Silva when he is down sized out of his job as a security guard at a bank in Oakland. But Roberto’s future isn’t the one he was looking forward to. This is the 1990s, and upward mobility in the city requires resources that Roberto is short of. Before he knows it, he is living in an abandoned quonset hut and then on the street, where he crosses paths with poet Silver Mendez, a survivor of the 1960s whose luck has run out, and Gus Hernandez, a compadre from his days at the bank. The ups and downs of the lives of men who are always looking for a way to earn a cup of coffee with plenty of sugar and cream, their desperate ingenuity, their hunger, their dauntless optimism have never been brought to life as vividly as in this sweet, sad, funny trio of interlocking stories by one of America’s most original writers.’An utterly distinct literary experience. No one writes like Gary Soto. Rather than falling into the trap of politicizing his subjects blaming Anglos, blaming the church, blaming anyone at all he simply presents the lives of these three men with emphasis on the minute details, the micro decisions, the often perverse impulses that actually comprise so much of human existence. By doing so, he achieves universality.’ Gerald Haslam

Poetry Lover

Twenty years ago, when Silver Mendez was the youthful author of two published books of poetry, he bragged that he was the first Chicano to write in complete sentences. His career has been going steadily downhill ever since. But a letter from Spain may change his luck. Silver is invited to Madrid to participate in a conference on Chicano literature. Now all he needs is money for a plane ticket, a new passport, and a place to stay. And oh, yes he needs to be able to send e mail to Spain. Silver, a poet without a job, a home, or even a typewriter to his name, has his work cut out for him. His old friend Al Sanchez, a body and fender man who used to play drums in a rock band, is tapped out and angry because Silver never repaid Al’s last loan. But even in the face of these imposing obstacles, Silver is determined not to miss this chance at the life a poet should live. Gary Soto introduced us to Silver in Nickel and Dime, where the homeless poet crossed paths with an assortment of other hard luck Oakland compadres. Here once again Soto s virtuoso ability to combine humor and pathos etches a warmhearted portrait of the stumbling Silver. Even while we laugh at his misadventures, we cheer him on as he lurches toward a new life with an old love.

Amnesia in a Republican County

Silver Mendez, veteran Chicano poet, is always looking for a way to guarantee himself three square meals a day and a roof over his head. As this latest account of Silver’s misadventures begins, our hero reaches for a typewriter on a high shelf. When it comes crashing down on his head he is knocked unconscious. He awakes with no idea where he is or why. Soon he discovers that he is in his office at a Baptist college in the Simi Valley of southern California, a place that is familiar to many Americans as the home of many of the jurors who tried and convicted Rodney King in the 1990s. Silver has become a professor of English! Moreover, as he soon discovers to his horror, he is having an affair with the wife of the college president. And someone seems to be selling drugs on campus and Silver seems to be involved though he doesn t know how. In his previous Silver Mendez novels Gary Soto has blended comedy and pathos, but this new book is a sharp eyed romp, an academic comedy about politics and political correctness, which is nonexistent at Silver s school. Gary Soto is an equal opportunity satirist. No academic is immune to his sense of the ridiculous, and neither is anyone else.

The Afterlife

You’d think a knife in the ribs would be the end of things, but for Chuy, that’s what it takes to make his life interesting. He finally sees that people love him, faces the consequences of his actions, and even stumbles upon what may be true love.

A funny, touching, and wholly original story by one of the finest authors writing for young readers today.

Marisol

Marisol Luna is a lively 10 year old girl who was born to dance. She’s a fourth grader who lives with her loving parents in a busy and largely Hispanic neighborhood in the heart of Chicago. Marisol goes to school where she is a Two Square champion takes care of her cat, plays with the kids in her neighborhood, and takes dance lessons. Ballet folkl rico Mexican folkdance is her favorite type of dance and where she really shines but she’s been exposed to some jazz and a little tap. She’s also taking ballet, but she’s new to it and a little impatient with its rigors. Her attitude towards ballet changes only slightly when she meets a wonderful new neighbor. Miss Mendoza is a former Rockette who gently reminds Marisol that ballet is worth working hard at, because it’s the basis for all serious dance. The upsetting news that her family is moving out to the suburbs is made worse when Marisol learns that the dance studio in her new neighborhood has closed. No tap, no ballet folkl rico not even ballet. She may have to take karate lessons! Instead, with the help of new friends, resourceful Marisol finds a way to keep dancing.

Accidental Love

It all starts when Marisa picks up the wrong cell phone. When she goes to return it, she feels something she’s never felt before, something a bit like…
love. But Marisa and Rene aren’t exactly a match made in heaven. For one thing, Marisa is a chola, and she isn’t petite; she’s a lot of girl, and she’s not ashamed of it. Skinny Rene, however, gangles like a sackful of elbows and wears a calculator on his belt. In other words, he’s a geek. So why can’t Marisa stay away from him?Award winning author Gary Soto deftly captures all the angst, expectation, and humor that comes with first love in this swift, lighthearted romance.

Mercy on These Teenage Chimps

On his thirteenth birthday, Ronnie woke up feeling like a chimp all long armed, big eared, and gangly. He’s been muddling through each gawky day since. Now his best friend, Joey, has turned thirteen, too and after Joey humiliates himself in front of a cute girl, he climbs a tree and refuses to come down. So Ronnie sets out to woo the girl on Joey’s behalf. After all, teenage chimps have to stick together. Acclaimed author Gary Soto tells a fun and touching story about friendship, understanding, and the painful insecurities of being thirteen.

Baseball in April

In this unique collection of short stories, the small events of daily life reveal big themes love and friendship, youth and growing up, success and failure. Calling on his own experiences of growing up in California’s Central Valley, poet Gary Soto brings to life the joys and pains of young people everywhere. The smart, tough, vulnerable kids in these stories are Latino, but their dreams and desires belong to all of us.

Local News

In thirteen stories full of wit and energy, Gary Soto illuminates the ordinary lives of young people. Meet Angel, who would rather fork over twenty bucks than have photos of his naked body plastered all over school; Philip, who discovers he has a ‘mechanical mind,’ whatever that means; Estela, known as Stinger, who rules Jos ‘s heart and the racquetball court; and many other kids, all of them with problems as big as only a preteen can make them. Funny, touching, and wholly original, Local News is Gary Soto in top form.

Petty Crimes

Meet Manuel, a young man who wears hand me downs from his older brothers until he finally gets a brand new pair of shoes. And Jose Luis, who watches the vet bills rise after he buys a sick rooster to save it from becoming someone’s dinner. And Alma, a young woman who runs to every shop and flea market in town buying back the clothes of her dead mother that her father has given away. These Mexican American youths meet life’s challenges head on in this hard hitting collection of short stories.

Help Wanted

With real wit and heart, Gary Soto takes readers into the lives of young people. Meet Carolina, who writes to Miss Manners for help not just with etiquette but with bigger messes in her life; Ronnie and Joey, who feel so alienated from their world that they spend their days as ‘Teenage Chimps’; Javier, who knows the stories his friend Veronica tells him are lies, but can’t find a way to prove it; Adan, who to his own shame and horror watches as his dad becomes a victim of the ‘Raiders Nation’; and many other kids, each of them caught up in the difficulties of figuring out what it means to be alive.

Facts of Life

What do Gaby Lopez, Michael Robles, and Cynthia Rodriguez have in common? These three kids join other teens and tweens in Gary Soto’s new short story collection, in which the hard knock facts of growing up are captured with humor and poignance. Filled with annoying siblings, difficult parents, and first loves, these stories are a masterful reminder of why adolescence is one of the most frustrating and fascinating times of life.

Novio Boy

Ninth grader Rudy has a date with eleventh grader Patricia. Now he 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 through the hilarious date itself all the way to its happy conclusion. Includes a glossary of Spanish phrases.

Nerdlandia

What happens when these two decide to change their images with the help of their bumbling friends to win each others’ heart? Will their different wavelengths ever meet? It’s a totally modern, totally hip tale of teenage romance. Gary Soto’s urban dialogue sets the scene in a Los Angeles neighborhood. Kids everywhere will see themselves in these funny, wonderful characters and they’ll love bringing them to life.

Too Many Tamales

Maria was feeling very grown up on Christmas Eve as she helped her mother prepare the tamales for Christmas dinner. When she slipped her mother’s diamond ring onto her finger, she only meant to wear it for a minute. But suddenly, the ring was gone, and there were 24 tamales that just might contain the missing ring. ‘A warm family story that combines glowing art with a well written text to tell of a girl’s dilemma.’ School Library Journal, starred review.

The Old Man and His Door

Who would bring the door, ‘la puerta’, to a picnic instead of the pig, ‘el puerco’? An old man who’s great at gardening but lousy at listening to his wife! ‘A playful original folktale that is sure to get laughs’. ‘School Library Journal’.

Snapshots from the Wedding

‘There’s nothing like a wedding, and this book about a wedding is not quite like any other…
. Maya, the flower girl, is the lens through which the action is seen. All of the fun of a wedding is here: the altar boy with the dirty sneakers under his gown, Maya putting pitted black olives on each of her fingers, the kids whacking each other with balloons…
. The choice of three dimensional artwork was inspired.’ Booklist starred review ‘The text, sprinkled with Spanish words, is eloquent and funny and it deftly captures the flavor of a Latino wedding, compete with Mariachi band. Garcia’s singular, deliciously creative artwork…
is eye catching.’ Publishers Weekly starred review ‘This is an unusually appealing book that will have broad appeal.’ The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Big Bushy Mustache

It’s almost Cinco de Mayo, and Ricky’s class is going to put on a play to celebrate the festive Mexican holiday. When asked to choose his costume, Ricky picks a big, bushy mustache, just like his dad’s. He’s tired of everyone telling him he looks like his mother. After all, he’s a boy he wants to look like his Papi. Although he’s supposed to leave it in school, Ricky wears the mustache home, reveling all the way in how grown up it makes him feel. But by the time he gets there, the mustache is gone, and Ricky dreads having to tell his teacher what happened. Lucky for him, his Mama and Papi have a plan. Ricky is delighted the next morning when his Mama hands him a new big, bushy mustache fresh from the smiling face of his clean shaven Papi! With humor and tenderness, Soto evokes a warm celebration of both the beloved tradition of Cinco de Mayo and the strong bonds of love between father and son.

If the Shoe Fits

Rigo doesn’t like being the youngest brother. He always has to wear his big brothers’ hand me downs. Plus, his brothers Hector, Manuel, and Carlos always seem to lose buttons, rip holes, and wear the clothes out before they get to Rigo! But Rigo’s luck changes on his birthday when his mom gives him a pair of shoes. He loves them for their shine and style, but most of all he loves them because they are brand new. After he outgrows the shoes, and trades them to his uncle for old Mexican centavos, Rigo learns that some hand me downs are better than brand new.

Lucky Luis

At Little League, Luis is catching fly balls, stealing bases, and hitting like a champ. But there is a problem: he thinks he’s getting good luck from the snacks he samples at the supermarket before every game. Then one day his mom goes directly to the field and he has a horrible practice. The day she skips the stop at the store before a game, he strikes out twice. Luckily, Luis’s father understands and convinces him that practice and concentration matter much more than any superstition.

Living Up the Street

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.

A Summer Life

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.

The Effects of Knut Hamsun On a Fresno Boy

Powerful personal narratives by the renowned author of Living Up the Street. These small essays are not unlike Dutch paintings of the sixteenth century. They are clear and precisely rendered, and are either thematically domestic scenes or pedestrian in their observations of the ordinary. There is a delirious joy in Soto’s writings, and heartbreak. This collection features his much lauded essays ‘The Jacket’ and ‘Like Mexicans,’ along with new essays such as ‘Childhood Worries, or Why I Became a Writer,’ ‘Getting It Done,’ and the title essay in which Soto fashions himself to be Fresno’s own Knut Hamsun, the Norwegian writer of the 1920s who lived on nothing more than his five senses. Poet and critic Christopher Buckley said of his poetry, ‘ Soto has mastered his form, has found his voice, and has the life experiences to provide meaningful content.’ He could have been speaking of his prose as well. Soto is at home with the essay; he is able to paint moments that would otherwise seem dull and not worthy of comment. He picks up hitchhikers, sorts through the mystery of finding a wife, and pulls together his wits to solve the hunger of stray dogs. He is tender and outrageous; he is reflective on worldly matters and cagey with his family and friends. In all, his dazzling effects of language will keep the reader continually surprised. These portraits are set in his hometown, Fresno, and in his current residence, the San Francisco Bay area. They therefore mark his time and place, but honor the instincts of the master Knut Hamsun, who walked around his town, a spectacle of wonder. This volume includes forty eight pieces: all of the personal narratives formerly collected in Small Faces, the best of Lesser Evils both volumes long out of print as well as five new essays.

Jessie De La Cruz

The remarkable story of the UFW’s first woman organizer, eloquently written for young adults. Here is a quiet hero a farm worker who walked the fields of the San Joaquin Valley for nearly half a century. Her name is Jessie De La Cruz. Much like other farm workers who threw down their hoes and their grape knives to fight for their rights as workers, she made a difference in the world. Studs Terkel wrote about Jessie De La Cruz, she has been quoted in histories of the UFW, and a television movie was partly based on her life. Finally, here is the life story of this remarkable woman, sensitively told by one of America’s most eloquent writers. Born in 1919, Jessie worked alongside her family as they followed the crops throughout the state of California. She saw those around her struggle and sometimes die because of poor living and working conditions. Jessie wanted to help. And she always found a way, whether it was peddling soup with her grandmother to earn extra money for her family or translating for a Mexican diplomat who came to talk with workers and growers about conditions in the fields. In her teens, Jessie saw the first strikes. When Cesar Chavez asked her to collect names of farm workers who wanted to improve their lives, she agreed. She had a knack for that important work. She went from camp to camp, talking to workers, and became the UFW’s first woman organizer. Jessie also married, and raised six children. Later, she went as a delegate to a Democratic convention, owned her own farm, testified before Congress, and met with the Pope. In this clear and moving narrative, enhanced by photographs of the period, Jessie De La Cruz comes to life. Her feelings and experiences are captured against a background of the Depression and the civil rights and labor movements. For those looking for inspiration, who wish to do big things Jessie is living proof that it can be done.

Cesar Chavez

Viva la causa! Viva C sar Ch vez! Up and down the San Joaquin Valley of California, and across the country, people chanted these words. Cesar Chavez, a migrant worker himself, was helping Mexican Americans work together for better wages, for better working conditions, for better lives. No one thought they could win against the rich and powerful growers. But Cesar was out to prove them wrong and that he did.

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