Wow!

It’s the South Bronx of the 1960s, a neighborhood teetering on change. The young Puerto Rican boy David Pérez is living in the Millbrook housing projects, about to be transferred to St. Luke’s Elementary School, where he’s already attended catechism and asked if God “popped out of nowhere.”

So begins Pérez’s delightful and engaging “memoirito,” a novella-like tale that follows Pérez believing that becoming cool and tough are life’s aspirations, and being the smartest guy in school isn’t something to brag about. The first in a series, Wow! adds a fresh chapter to the colorful chronicles of Latinos living in the United States—complex, layered, y lleno de sabor.