Living Up The Street — Gary Soto

In prose that is so beautiful it is poetry, Gary Soto depicts the world of growing up and going somewhere through the dust and heat of Fresno's industrial side and beyond. This is the story of a boy's coming-of-age in the barrio -- attending parochial school, church, and public summer school, and trying to fall out of love so he can join a Little League baseball team.

The authenticity of Soto's description rings constantly in the warmth and wry reality of these sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, always human remembrances.