papertigers.org
home book reviews
Read Our Blog A Pacific Rim Voices Project
Interviews Past Issues Gallery Personal Views List and Links Outreach

Intro

Canada
China
UK
USA
  search our site  
   
 

Is this section useful?
Are we missing something?
Let us know!

feedback At Papertigers Dot Org

sign up for our newsletter!

read our blog



 
 

USA

Reviews from
PaperTigers
 
   < View all PaperTigers reviews

BookCover

 

Gary Soto,
Help Wanted
Harcourt, new in paperback 2007; first published 2005

Ages 12 +

Mexican-American Gary Soto mines emotional material acquired growing up in a Fresno, California, barrio for his young adult books. His short story collection, Help Wanted, while vividly specific in its place details, also gets inside the universal mind of young adolescents.

Whether grieving the loss of a mother, or more often abandonment by a father, his characters are both growing up too fast and stuck in a netherworld of insecurity. Their amusing and disarming façades fail to hide their tenderhearted suffering and sensitivity. Soto is a master at conjuring these vulnerable young people.

Michael’s first paintball experience is a painfully expensive rite of passage. Carolina finds solace in indignant letters to Miss Manners about her uncouth friends and family. Javier can’t believe his classmate’s farfetched stories of Napa vineyards and New Mexico ranches - until she shows up just overhead, yelling at him through a bullhorn from her dad’s helicopter. Richard’s attempt to do a good deed for an old lady leads him into an encounter with her lazy grandson, the school tough. After various misadventures, two boys who think of themselves as chimps take an inner tube to the canal and drift away to what they dream will be Animal Planet.

Soto is a poet as well as a storyteller and he captures the dreams of his characters with acute poignance. His stories often close on a hauntingly lyrical note. “So we paddled our inner tube”, the chimps’ adventures end. “The current was slow, but we were getting there all the same by the shiny light on a dark and cold canal.” Soto’s compassion for his characters and his personal humanity make him an inspiring role model for youthful Hispanic writer aspirants: but all teens will be heartened by his warm, respectful, and humorous depiction of their lives.

Charlotte Richardson
September 2007

back to top
   

 

  interviews | gallery | personal views | reviews | past issues | lists and links  
   
 

about us | newsletter & privacy policy | downloads | site map | search | testimonials | disclaimer

home | outreach | blog
contact us©2001-2011 Pacific Rim Voices