PARROT IN THE OVEN

Fourteen-year-old Manny Hernandez, a Mexican-American from the housing projects of southern California, is perplexed. He's trying to work through the racism that surrounds him, as well as the poverty and unemployment, poor schools and local gangs, towards a sense of who he is and where he belongs in the world. His father says he's like a parrot who, trusting everyone, lands in the oven. Robert Ramirez's narration is clean, evenly paced and direct. A certain lively, yet trusting, innocence in his voice matches Manny's first-person narration. It doesn't, however, prevent him from powerfully voicing Manny's bullish father or his harried mother. Martinez's sympathetic humanity and Ramirez's narration combine to produce an excellent school text for teaching multicultural awareness. P.E.F. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/JAN 99]