Book Review: THE SKIRT

A. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Soto Gary. 1992. THE SKIRT. New York: Delacorte. ISBN 0679883339.

B. PLOT SUMMARY
Miata is a girl who always lost her stuff; she loses her combs, sweaters, books, homework and lunch money, and her mother is mad at her for this issue. The most serious thing is that she loses a skirt in the school bus on Friday after class. The skirt had belonged to her mother when she was a child, and now Miata is going to wear it to dance with the other two girls on Sunday after church. Miata and her best friend, Ana, tries very hard; they cross a fence to get into the parking lot and stretch the pole to open the bus door to reach her skirt. Miata gets hurt from falling down on the bump of the bus and almost gets caught by her father as well as run into her mother. Finally she gets the skirt back at a big adventure and the skirt as beautiful as usual. On early Sunday morning, Miata’s mother gives her a tremendous surprise by giving her a brand new skirt with bright new colors and fresh smell. She like the new skirt and feel sad for old one. Finally, Miata has a good idea to dance in wearing both two skirts.

C. RITICAL ANALYSIS
Soto, an author, spontaneously depicts cultural markers in his canon, and it is easy to find cultural markers in “The Skirt” as usual. The readers can easily tell the story is about a Mexican culture from the cover page which with Mexican stripes on words of the title, “Skirt,” as well as the number of each Chapter. Meanwhile, the traditional costume, a folklorico skirt, wears a rainbow of shiny ribbons on the bottom. The food, frijoles, papas fritas and her father’s favorite meal, carne del viernes are also other cultural markers.

The dialect language is the majority of the content in this book. Language involving lot of Spanish dialects and terms play an important role in this story. For example, “Todavia no esta aqui” said by Ana’s grandmother. Soto appropriately utilizes Spanish dialects into the dialects which vividly describing this story rather than enhance difficulty of reading for outside readers. Even though few of Spanish dialects are difficult for readers to understand at the first reading, they still can catch the meaning by reading the following content.

The fluent writing flow and easily read words as well as the intensive storyline about family life and their relationship, and friendships between Miata and Ana are impulses for readers to keep reading and stay eager to read the whole story at one time. Readers can feel the rhythm and tempo while they are reading.

D. REVIEW EXCERPTS
The Publisher: “A warm-hearted story about a contemporary Mexican-American family.”

Publishers Weekly: “spunky and imaginative'' heroine, Miata comes up with a clever plan to retrieve her beloved folklorico dance skirt.”

School Library Journal: “This is a light, engaging narrative that successfully combines information on Hispanic culture with familiar and recognizable childhood themes. The San Joaquin Valley, California, setting is realistically drawn, and the closeness of Miata's family is reassuring. A fine read-aloud and discussion starter, this story blends cultural differences with human similarities to create both interest and understanding.”

E. CONNECTIONS
The website information about Gary Soto

The official Gary Soto website: http://www.garysoto.com/
Gary Soto: A teacher resource file: http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/soto.htm
FactMonster: http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0884322.html