When Miata leaves on the school bus the skirt that she is to wear in a dance performance, she needs all her wits to get it back without her parents' finding out that she has lost something yet again.
Chato and Novio win a cruise but are disappointed to find that everyone else on board is a dog, and things go from bad to worse when the dogs party themselves sick and it is up to the cats to find help.
Maria tries on her mother's wedding ring while helping make tamales for a Christmas family get-together, but when the ring turns up missing, Maria and her cousins eat up all the tamales in a frantic effort to find the ring.
Maya, the flower girl, describes a Mexican American wedding through snapshots of the day's events, beginning with the procession to the altar and ending with her sleeping after the dance.
At age thirteen, best friends Ronnie and Joey suddenly feel like chimps--long armed, big eared, and gangly--and when the coach humiliates Joey in front of a girl, he climbs up a tree and refuses to come down.
Hector and his best friend Mondo enjoy many exciting adventures when they take a six-day bike trip from their East Los Angeles neighborhood to the Santa Monica beach during summer vacation.
