Parrot+in+the+Oven

In 1997, Victor Martinez won the National Book Award in the young people's literacy category for Parrot in the Oven. Manny's character is based, in part, on Martinez's own life and experience. U.S News and World Report called the novel a “brilliant, witty memoir of a Mexican-American adolescence”, but Parrot in the Oven is clearly a story about race and culture. But the issues Manny experiences—love, violence, sibling conflicts, gangs—are similar in may ways to the issues any teenager faces.