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Gary Soto writes that whenever he was five "what I understood best was at ground level." In such a lively assortment of brief essays, Soto can take his listener to a ground-level point of view, recreating in brilliant detail the sights, tones, smells, and textures he understood growing up in his Fresno, California, neighborhood. The "things" of his boyhood link it all alongside one another: his Buddha "splotched with gold", the taps of his shoes, and the "engines of sparks that resided beneath my soles", his worn tennies smelling of "summer grass, asphalt, the moist sock inhaling and exhaling the beat of baseball". The child's world comprises of small things - small, very important things. A respected poet and an innovator of the brief essay form, Soto offers nearly snapshot-like glances of moments unique in form yet universal in content. Growing up Chicano and male, Soto offers us a rag-tag contest through his neighborhood, speaking equally as well to the childhood experiences folks all. Anyone who remembers the '50s or who has learned anything about growing up in the '50s, will relish Soto's abundant poetic descriptions. Professors and students of writing will relish Soto's abundant poetic descriptions. Professors and students of writing will also find enthusiasm in these securely knit and highly imaginative stories. Soto offers a lot more than humorous and poignant recollections; he wraps each recollection in a poetry that lingers pleasantly in the reader's brain.
