For Ages
12 to 99

These lively stories follow Rey Castaneda from sixth through eighth grade in Nuevo Penitas, Texas. One side of Rey's family lives nearby in Mexico, the other half in Texas, and Rey fits in on both sides of the border. In Nuevo Penitas, he enjoys fooling around with his pals in the barrio; at school, he's one of the "A list" kids.

As Rey begins to cross the border from childhood into manhood, he turns from jokes and games to sense the meaning of work, love, poverty, and grief, and what it means to be a proud Chicano-moments that sometimes propel him to show feelings un hombre should never express. It's a new territory where Rey longs to follow the example his hardworking, loving father has set for him.

An Excerpt fromThe Jumping Tree

When I was a baby, 'Api, my father, moved us from South Texas to California. I only remember a few things about the four years we lived there: the squirrels chasing after one another outside my window, music on our neighbors' radios, playing in the backyard with my older sister, Lety, and the tree in our front yard that drooped heavy with fat leaves. Men from the barrio hung out under it, drinking from brown bottles. Sometimes they'd stretch out asleep on our dirt driveway. If we wanted to go out in our bright red car, we couldn't because the men were sprawled out hard asleep.

I also remember the tremors, the shakety shakes. They would sneak up on us. Lety and I would be in bed and we'd hear a rumbling sound, like a car far away, getting louder and louder, as if the car was turning the corner. The pictures of my grandparents on the walls would quiver, and some would fall to the floor. "Esos temblores fregados," 'Ami said; they were creeping…