Gary Soto

Product Description: Lincoln Mendoza is back and he is in a jam when his basketball team at his new school — where the students are rich and mostly white — faces his old team from the barrio on the boards. How can he play his best against his friends? No matter who wins, it looks like it will be lose-lose for Lincoln.

"Miata Ramirez has a problem that will strike a chord with many children: she forgets things. This particular Friday afternoon, she has left her folklórico skirt on the school bus, and she is supposed to dance in it on Sunday. She sees no alternative but to break into the bus and retrieve it. So, dragging along her shy friend, Ana, that is exactly what she does." — School Library Journal

For their family's Christmas celebration, María's mother makes lots of tamales. But while María is helping out, she tries on her mother's ring and loses it in the dough. Without telling the adults, María and her young relatives try to find it — by eating all the tamales!