From: Christine Hill <chill>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 16:13:59 -0400

Gary Soto's Living Up the Street (orginally published adult but widely now used as YA) is a highly selective memoir, rather than an autobiography. It gives glimpses of the origins of his fiction, in particular, it gives the original of "Baseball in April" as it happened to Gary and his brother. The childlike point of view is adhered to, even to the point of seeming to reflect badly on his family. For instance, he describes groups of preschoolers jumping out windows and eating raw bacon, seemingly unsupervised. Of course, to the heedless children they were, adults didn't figure in their fun. In a later memoir, I laughed to see him describe almost the same incident, carefully adding that the adults really were watching. I wonder if he took some flak for the first version. I am still haunted by Beverly Cleary's A Girl From Yamhill. I will never forget her walking around the ledge of an upper story at about age three with her horrified parents on the ground. Cleary shows again and again where Ramona came from. And the chilling portrait of her mother, a pioneer teacher turned rigid with resentment after her marriage. I think the mother's act of keeping a diary of Beverly's life AS IF SHE WERE BEVERLY is one of the most shocking things I have ever read. Christine M. Hill Willingboro Public Library One Salem Road Willingboro, NJ 08046 chill at willingboro.org

Susan Katz wrote:
Received on Mon 19 Apr 1999 03:13:59 PM CDT