A Fire in My Hands

By the author of short stories "Mother and Daughter" and "The Broken Chain," these twenty-three poems recall Soto's years growing up in Fresno, CA and later as a father. His memories mix with metaphors everyone can relate to as he recalls his love of baseball, shyly flirting in the library, and being too broke to treat his date to a candy bar. He remembers trying to earn money to go to the movies by selling oranges door to door, accompanied by a helpful dog. The poems are written in free verse, and the poet introduces each one with a note explaining the circumstances that inspired him to write it. In the Foreword and Question and Answer section at the end, Soto gives kind and helpful advice to those interested in writing their own poems. This a very accessible and thin volume of poetry with wide appeal.

The poems in gary soto's latest book [A fire in my hands]are so descriptive they are telling stories. Each poem he writes is a moment, and in some of the poems you feel like you are really there. The reason I gave this book four stars is because some of the poems are too much like stories and it doesn't have the same effect on you as it would if it were more poetic and less like a storie though I do know since I am a writer myself that each author has their own style, and some of his poems were not exactly enthralling so I said above. I am 11 and since I read it I would recommend this book to kids maybe 10 to adult because people younger might not understand some of the poems and that totally takes away the effec of poetry. Thanks for reading my review, Lizzy

I think that this book of poetry is full of beautiful poems that really pull you into the realistic themes of Gary Soto's poems. His poems were beautifly written and are full of stories. I think that this book is definetly a good one for poets who like realistic situations and descriptive moments. Since I love writing I thin Gary Soto has a unique way of writing and any one who read this review (but I would recommend it for people ages 9+) and liked the sound of this book. This book definetly earns 5 stars!