Parrot+in+the+Oven

=Parrot in the Oven, mi vida= a novel by Victor Martinez


 * "Dad believed people were like money. You could be a thousand-dollar person or a hundred-dollar person--even a ten-, five-, or one-dollar person. Below that, everybody was just nickels and dimes. To my dad, we were pennies.**

Fourteen-year-old Manny Hernandez wants to be more than just a penny. He wants to be a //vato firme//, the kind of guy people respect. But that's not easy when your father is abusive, your brother can't hold a job, and your mother scrubs the house as if she can wash her troubles away.

In Manny's neigborhood, the way to get respect is to be in a gang. But Manny's not sure that joining a gang is the solution. Because, after all, it's his life--and he wants to be the one to decide what happens to it.

Winner of the 1996 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, **Parrot in the** Oven: //mi vida// is a fresh, original, and powerfully written account of one boy's coming-of-age in a difficult time." //transcribed from the back cover of the paperback edition// 1996 National Book Award for Young People's Literature 1996 America's Award for Children and Young Adult Literature 1997 Pura Belpre Award for Children's Literature 1997 Books for the Teen Age (New York Public Library)
 * Awards **

Language issue and mature themes. Beginning in chapter 3, the father, who is an alcoholic and verbally abusive uses language when he speaks to his family. Themes include the struggles of alcoholism, spousal abuse, teenage pregnancy, racial discrimination, and gang violence, and gangs.

inappropriate for some middle-schoolers.