The Ruiz Street Kids / Los muchachos de la calle Ruiz

$9.95

Deals humorously with issues such as making new friends, sibling relationships, and the misconceptions of first impressions.

by Diana Gonzales Bertrand

ISBN: 978-1-55885-321-8
Publication Date: 2006
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 224
Imprint: Piñata Books
Ages:
8-12

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Meet the Silva kids, the Guerra boys, and the new Perez family who live on Ruiz Street. On a hot summer day, a new kid named David rides into the neighborhood. Gossip about the mysterious boy stretches longer than a wad of gum. The kids wonder why he rides a different bike everyday.

Is he stealing them? He gets rough at the swimming pool, he scares the younger kids, and he spies over the fence. Why is he always so mean? Is it true that he eats a bee’s nest for breakfast and sleeps on a bed of nails? What does he want from the kids who live on Ruiz Street and why in the world would they ever want to be friends with somebody like David? The young narrator, Joe Silva, introduces intermediate readers to both his friends and their common enemy on Ruiz Street. David doesn’t have good people skills and doesn’t know quite how to improve them. Can the other kids see beyond his faults and discover another side to the boy on the bike? Filled with humor and mystery, the Ruiz Street kids’ adventures are sure to entertain as they try to understand the peculiar habits of the new boy named David.

Like her previous books for intermediate readers, Alicia’s Treasure and Upside Down and Backwards, Bertrand has written another book to get children talking about making new friends, sibling relationships, and the misconceptions of first impressions. Even the most reluctant readers will keep reading to discover what those Ruiz Street Kids plan to do about the newest kid on the block.

Winner, 2007 Skipping Stones Honor Book
Named to the 2007-2008 Tejas Star Reading List
Recipient, 2007 International Latino Book Award for Best Young Adult Bilingual-Fiction

“Bertrand brings to life this working-class Southwestern neighborhood full of large, struggling families. The characters are well developed and appealing.”—School Library Journal

“This book…offers humor and entertainment while subtly teaching valuable lessons about gossiping, bullying, getting along, and not judging others too quickly.”—Review of Texas Books

DIANE GONZALES BERTRAND is the author of several books for young adults. They include There’s a Name for This Feeling / Hay un nombre para lo que siento (Piñata Books, 2014), The F Factor (Piñata Books, 2010), Close to the Heart (2002), Trino’s Time (2001), Trino’s Choice (1999), Lessons of the Game (1998), and Sweet Fifteen (1995). A lifelong resident of San Antonio, Bertrand teaches at St. Mary’s University, where she is also Writer in Residence.

Learn more by visiting her faculty page.

ATOS Interest Level: Lower/Middle Grade
Category: Intermediate Reader
ATOS English: 3.7
ATOS Spanish: 3.8
LEXILE: 600L
LEXILE Spanish: 690L
Accelerated Reader Quiz #: 113860