Crazy Loco - Hardcover

Rice, David Talbot

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803725981 ISBN 13: 9780803725980

Publisher: Dial, 2001

Synopsis

Provides young adult readers with an amusing collection of nine short stories starring a group of Mexican-American kids growing up in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas.

About this title

About the Author

David Rice is the author of the acclaimed anthology Give the Pig a Chance.

Reviews

Gr 7 Up-Two great strengths of these stories are the pitch-perfect sense for the speech and thought patterns of teens and the vivid depiction of the daily lives of Mexican-Americans in Texas's Rio Grande Valley. One story focuses on two small-town boys trying to cope when their older and more sophisticated California cousins come to visit. Another is about the loving relationship between a girl and her great-aunt, a midwife who retires at age 85 after her grand-niece is born. Another tells of a teen who resents having to move in with his grandfather after his parents' divorce and having to adapt to the old man's ways. Rice highlights the details of these ordinary lives-including Spanish words and phrases as well as Catholic practices-while still revealing the universal patterns behind the cultural particularities. The strongest stories here-"Last Mass," "Her Other Son," and "Papa Lalo"-also display a firm control of narrative and dramatic unity, drawing readers on to emotionally satisfying but not predictable conclusions. In the weaker stories, the insights and the voice are still sharp, but the narratives are less compelling. Even so, this is a powerful collection that should enjoy a wide audience.

Coop Renner, Moreno Elementary School, El Paso, TX

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 7-12. Crazy Loco collects nine stories rooted in everyday life in a small town in South Texas. Like the best short fiction, they reveal their deepest truths obliquely, in the details of small moments and gestures. In the title story, a boy names his dog Crazy Loco--a wonderful, casual illustration of the characters' constant bilingual shifts between cultures. There are family struggles too: in "Her Other Son," a boy registers both the tensions and the "deep rhythms of comfort and peace" in his family. There are sexy scenes of first kisses and frightening moments with the border police. Sometimes the metaphors are too heavy; one links a bird's release to a girl's desire to leave her home for college. But Rice, author of Give the Pig a Chance (1996), blends humor and precise detail, creating believable, imperfect, complex characters that are at once rowdy, subversive, and devoted to family and tradition. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Dial
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803725981
• ISBN 13: 9780803725980
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Clayton Christian
• Number of pages: 160