The Boys of San Joaquin

From School Library Journal Grade 5-8 - This episodic tale vividly conveys life in a small California town during the 1950s. The main characters are 12-year-old Paolo, his 6-year-old brother, and their cousin Billy, who is deaf. After their dog shows up with a half-eaten 20-dollar bill, the boys scour Orange Grove City in an attempt to track the source of the money, eventually discovering that funds from the Catholic church collection have gone missing. Paolo is a keen narrator, as he describes characters (the kindly and wise Monsignor, a rich boy who's a bit of a jerk, the girls who are more interested in boys than the boys are in them) and events (his first driving lesson, the first car wash ever done to raise money, rescuing Billy from almost drowning). Above all else, his voice comes across with originality and verve: "I have a reputation of stretching things toward the interesting, but only as to make my point, so you'll understand that if this isn't exactly the whole truth, it