Parrot in the oven
Subtitle: mi vida
By: by Victor Martinez
Series: The exchange; Exchange (Hampton-Brown)
Publisher: Hampton-Brown
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Carmel, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 183
ISBN-13: 9780736231664
Copyright date: 1996
Subjects: Juvenile fiction; Mexican Americans; Families; Alcoholism
Other titles: Perico en el horno
Description: Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone's struggle. Perico, or parrot, was what Dad called me sometimes. It was from a Mexican saying about a parrot that complains how hot it is in the shade, while all along he's sitting inside an oven and doesn't know it.... For Manuel Hernandez, the year leading up to his test of courage, his initiation into a gang, is a time filled with the pain and tension, awkwardness and excitement of growing up in a crazy world. His dad spends most of his time and money at the local pool hall; his brother flips through jobs like a thumb through a deck of cards; and his mom never stops cleaning the house, as though one day the rooms will be so spotless they'll disappear into a sparkle, and she'll be free. Manny's dad is always saying that people are like money--there are million- and thousand- and hundred-dollar people out there, and to him, Manny is just a penny. But Manny wants to be more than a penny, smarter than the parrot in the oven. He wants to find out what it means to be a vato firme, a guy to respect.