Humboldt Park Days: By the author of Boricua Morena: Memoirs of a Humboldt Park Girl

There are three corner stores on Western Avenue-Don Chu's, The Corner Store, and The Pretzel Store. If you want fresh platanos and avocados, alcolado Superior setenta and other "Foods Imported Straight from Puerto Rico," you go to Don Chu's. If you want things you forgot at Jewel, the big grocery store, bread, milk or Pampers, you go to The Corner Store. But if you want B-B-Bats, Squirrel nut chews, and pretzel sticks, you go to the best store in Humboldt Park-The Pretzel Store.-from HUMBOLDT PARK DAYSIn HUMBOLDT PARK DAYS we are introduced to Toty (Xenia Ru?z's childhood nickname) as she grows from child to pre-teen during the late 1960s to early 1970s. As she contemplates what she will be when she grows up, Ru?z takes us deeper into her everyday life as a girl who dreamed of being many things including a bus driver, teacher, and a conga player, to name a few. In her second book, BORICUA MORENA: MEMOIRS OF A HUMBOLDT PARK GIRL (2006), Ru?z documented her memories of growing up in Chicago's Humboldt Park community in a collection of essays, poetry and short stories. More than a supplement to BORICUA MORENA, Ruiz's HUMBOLDT PARK DAYS is a sort of prequel told in simplistic detail through the most honest eyes. Although Humboldt Park is frequently depicted as an economically depressed community overrun with gangs, drugs, and violence, there is little evidence of this life in Ru?z's recollection of her days there. HUMBOLDT PARK DAYS is an inspiring coming-of-age memoir honoring one of Chicago's oldest Latino communities.