Virtual Book Groups: Sergio Troncoso

If you are reading A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son or any other of Sergio Troncoso’s books, he will meet with your book group by Zoom for an hour or two. Zoom is easy to use, and the host (Sergio Troncoso) sets up the meeting and emails all participants with a link, which they click to enter the ‘virtual meeting.’ Sergio will be able to see and hear all the participants on his computer, and they will be able to see and hear him on their computers too. You can talk about any book by Sergio that the group has read, ask him questions about his novels, stories or essays, and discuss the craft of writing with him as well. Each month he will only do a few of these Virtual Book Groups as his time and schedule permits.

Write to him at SergioTroncoso(AT)gmail(DOT)com and tell him about your book group, and he’ll let you know quickly about his future availability. It’s easy to schedule, and Sergio loves talking to his readers.

https://sergiotroncoso.com/virtualbookgroups/index.htm

Winners of 2019 Troncoso Reading Prizes

Thank you Suzy Marrufo, branch manager, and the entire staff of the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library for your work on behalf of the annual Troncoso Reading Prizes. On December 18th, we held the ceremony to present the winners with certificates of achievement and gift cards from Barnes and Noble. I also gave each student a signed copy of one of my books.

The newly renovated Troncoso Branch Library looks beautiful. I arrived to an expanded parking lot, gorgeous light from the sunset coming in through the windows, and library patrons quietly reading books and magazines on the new furniture. The circulation desk was also redone. Bravo, City of El Paso, for investing in our local library! Even the reconstruction and widening of Alameda has been finished, so now the road to and from the library is also in great shape.

The 2019 winners of the Troncoso Reading Prizes are: Mirayah Arleene Flores and Anthony Morelos (1st place); Jocelyn Soria and Sofia Aguirre (2nd place); and Isabella Guerrero Cortes and Celine Guevara (3rd place).

I loved chatting with this year's winners and their parents about growing up in Ysleta, education, the importance of reading, and creating a reading culture at home. They asked many questions, and I was happy to have great conversations about how reading can foster concentration, self-worth, and a sense of self that helps you achieve your goals. The El Paso Public Library was where I learned to satisfy that intellectual hunger for ideas and stories, and I could see that hunger and focus in all of these students. Each of them reminded me of who I was many years ago. I love this community, and I will keep returning to Ysleta to award these prizes every year and to talk to families about how they can educate themselves and their children to gain a voice, to reach their goals, and to return and help others.


Every year, we award prizes for students who read the most books between September 15-November 15. The prizes are awarded only to students within the geographical area covered by the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library.

First Place receives a $125.00 gift card.
Second Place receives a $100.00 gift card.
Third Place receives a $75.00 gift card.

All prizes are gift cards from Barnes and Noble Booksellers. A total of six prizes are awarded.

Librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library register readers during the eligible period of the prizes. The library staff administers the prizes and makes final decisions on all the prizewinners.

If you have any questions or to register for the 2020 prizes, please contact the library staff at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907. Telephone: 915-212-0453.

Winners of 2016 Troncoso Reading Prizes

Yesterday the staff of the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library and I presented the winners of the 2016 Troncoso Reading Prizes with certificates of achievement and gift cards from Barnes Noble. The winners also received a signed copy of one of my books, and we read their individual essays on their favorite books. I was so proud of all the winners.

Here are some pictures with parents, teachers, and school administrators who attended the event at the library. I can't wait to do it again next year.

Winners of 2016 Troncoso Reading Prizes:

9-12th grade category:
1st Place: Alejandra Mendoza, Del Valle High School; 2nd Place: Anais Madrid, El Paso Academy; 3rd Place: Jasmine Saldana Madrid, Valle Verde Early College High School.

5-8th grade category:
1st Place: Natalie Rivas, Presa Elementary School; 2nd Place: Isabel Batista, LeBarron Elementary School; 3rd Place: Adenike Herrera, LeBarron Elementary School.

Every year, we award prizes for students who read the most books between September 15-November 15. The prizes are awarded only to students within the geographical area covered by the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library. A list of eligible schools is available at Troncoso Reading Prizes.

First Place receives a $125.00 gift card, Second Place receives a $100.00 gift card, and Third Place receives a $75.00 gift card. All prizes are gift cards from Barnes and Noble Booksellers. A total of six prizes are awarded in the two categories every year.

Each student also picks a favorite book from the books read and writes a short essay (100 word or less) on that book. We read those essays at the awards ceremony.

Librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library register readers during the eligible period of the prizes. The library staff administers the prizes and makes final decisions on all the prizewinners.

If you have any questions or to register next year, please contact the library staff at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907. Telephone: 915-858-0905.

Winners of 2015 Troncoso Reading Prizes

This week the staff of the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library and I presented the inaugural winners of the Troncoso Reading Prizes with certificates of achievement, gift cards from Barnes Noble, and gift bags from the El Paso Public Library.

The winners also received a signed copy of one of my books, and we read their individual essays on their favorite books. Here are some pictures with parents, teachers, and even principals who attended the event at the library. I can't wait to do it again next year.

Winners of 2015 Troncoso Reading Prizes:

9-12th grade category: 1st Place: Alejandra Mendoza, Del Valle High School, 2nd Place: Jasmine Saldana Madrid, Valle Verde Early College High School, 3rd Place: Amber Saldana Madrid, Valle Verde Early College High School.

5-8th grade category: 1st Place: Galilea Rodriguez, LeBarron Elementary School, 2nd Place: Jesus Martinez, Presa Elementary School, 3rd Place: Victoria Alarcon, LeBarron Elementary School.

A total of 90 students signed up for the inaugural Troncoso Reading Prizes, and these students read a remarkable 1,562 books. An overwhelming majority, 71 students, read five or more books between September 15-November 15. Many students read more than twenty books.

The prizes are awarded only to students within the geographical area covered by the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library. A list of eligible schools is available at Troncoso Reading Prizes.

First Place receives a $125.00 gift card, Second Place receives a $100.00 gift card, and Third Place receives a $75.00 gift card. All prizes are gift cards from Barnes and Noble Booksellers. A total of six prizes are awarded in the two categories every year.

The prizes are given to students who read the most books from September 15 to November 15 of each year. During this time period, students read a minimum of five books. The students who read the most books are the prizewinners. Each student picks a favorite book from the books read and writes a short essay (100 word or less) on that book. Prizewinners have their essays laminated and displayed next to their favorite book in the library.

Librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library use the Evance System to register readers during the eligible period of the prizes. The library staff administers the prizes and makes final decisions on all the prizewinners.

If you have any questions or to register next year, please contact the library staff at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907. Telephone: 915-858-0905.

Troncoso Reading Prizes

I have established the Troncoso Reading Prizes for children and young adults at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library in Ysleta (El Paso, Texas). These six prizes for grade school, middle school, and high school students in the Ysleta area will be given out every year for those who read the most books from September 15-November 15. The librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library will administer the prizes. To read more about the Troncoso Reading Prizes and to download the rules for eligibility, please visit:

http://www.sergiotroncoso.com/library/index.htm

 

El Paso Public Library, Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907.

Why Read?

I believe this is the crisis of our times: we are losing readers, we are forgetting why reading is important as well as pleasurable, and we are becoming accustomed to a culture focused primarily on images.  What happened to our long-term attention span?  Why are logic and fact-based analysis overshadowed by rhetoric and politics?  Why can’t we slow down?  Why do we believe responding in real time on Twitter and Facebook is ‘meaningful involvement’ with society or family?  Why is reading more important than ever?

Over the past few weeks, I have been reading Edith Wharton’s novels at night, and have marveled at the modernity of the protagonists, from Lily Bart to Undine Spragg, and at Wharton’s ability to keep the story moving, the characters evolving, and the reader surprised.  I like to learn from good novelists, and I am learning from Wharton.

I have timed my reading to finish whenever a Yankee game is on the Yes Network, and if no game is at hand, then at least Storage Wars or American Pickers.  That’s it.  That’s about the only TV I watch, or I feel is worth watching.  My kids rarely watch TV, and my wife only watches the news, if that.  They do see episodes of The Office, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report on their computers, which prompts me to consider whether I should cut cable TV once and for all.  But I don’t.  Not yet.  I want to, but I don’t.

Since Aaron and Isaac were toddlers, my wife and I read to them.  Every night.  Thirty minutes for Laura.  Thirty minutes for me.  This was our religion through their grade school years.  Not surprisingly Aaron and Isaac as high-school students are enthusiastic readers for pleasure.  After school, they are as likely to guffaw at Stephen Colbert on their MacBooks as they are to read their novels in bed.  But this family culture of reading, if you can call it that, took years to foment, took attention and care to implement and nurture, and took active dismissal of what I would call the normal American culture of not reading.

I am often asked how I became a reader, in part because many know that I grew up poor along the Mexican-American border of El Paso, Texas.  My parents did not read to me.  They could read and did read in Spanish, but most of my reading was in English.  My parents did hand me two or three dollars for paperback books I ordered at South Loop School from Scholastic Books every other Friday.  But more importantly, they left me alone.  They left me alone with my massive collection of paperbacks, and they never disparaged my love of reading.  The opportunity to read and the space to read are as important as having your parents read to you.  I still remember the lime-green bookshelves my handy father built in my room.  These bookshelves housed my treasures.  I have never forgotten how he took the time to do what mattered to me.

So I don’t know if you are made a reader, or if you are born a reader.  What I do know is that reading widely —reading beyond your time and culture, reading different genres, reading in different languages— changes your perspective profoundly.  Television becomes a bore, and what is said and done on television is amusing.  But it’s rarely important.  The crisis of the day or the outrage of the day becomes just more inane shouting to get your attention.  On the Internet, online status updates are interesting little notes about your life, but never more than that.  It’s not really who you are, and well, a serious reader would know that.  But you worry about the others.  Those who don’t read. Those who take television as the truth.  Those who sell stocks at the clarion call of another ‘crisis,’ or buy gold as they anticipate a Mayan apocalypse, or attack an ‘other’ because ‘they’ are after us, aren’t they?

Yes, I worry about our American culture and how it is shaping us.  It’s short-term-ism, if you can call it that, its obsession with fluff and images, its endless talk about who stunned in what dress.  Are any of us ever going to look like Victoria Secret models?  Will any of us ever get a chance to date them?

We are not ‘censored’ in the traditional way in the United States: writers are not beaten or killed because of their words, and no Ministry of Truth enforces an official version of what can be printed and thought.  But in this culture of images, we are censoring ourselves.  That may be more insidious and long-lasting.  What I mean is that we disparage long-term complexity, and extol superficiality.  We ignore reading, and lavish time on images.  To read, in my mind, is to consider and to think.  To see an image is to react.  What happens when we start believing the world and what is important in it are only these reactions and prejudices?  What have you become when the most expected of you is simply to press a ‘Like’ button?  What kind of gulag is it when its inhabitants are too stupid to understand they are its prisoners?

Because I live in a different milieu of my own creation, and also because I’m rather humorless unless the joke is really quick and clever and insightful, I’d rather be reading and catch a Yankee game afterwards.  For me, that’s the perfect night.  I can kiss my wife goodnight, and kiss my boys goodnight too (yes, remarkably, they still let me), and know that I am happy to do things the simple way, the slow way.  I focus on how I find meaning in my life over the long-term.  That is how I work to be free.

Solve the mystery, win a free book

I am a contributor to a terrific new anthology, You Don’t Have A Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens with a Teacher's Guide (Arte Público Press), which was published a month ago and has been receiving stellar reviews.  From Booklist, the anthology won a starred review.  Kirkus called it “a consistent, well-crafted collection.”  The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books said, “The mix of realistic and fantastic mysteries guarantees broad reader appeal for this impressive collection.”  Much credit should go to our editor, Sarah Cortez, whose careful guidance throughout the project was exemplary.

This anthology is chockfull of writers I admire: Mario Acevedo, Carlos Hernandez, Diana Lopez, René Saldana, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Richie Narvaez, Gwendolyn Zepeda, Ray Villareal, Manuel Ramos, Daniel Olivas, and many others.  I am proud to be included among them, writing mysteries and encouraging teens (and all of us, for that matter) to read.

So herewith is a challenge, to all intrepid readers in cyberspace and beyond: whoever can solve the mystery of my story “Nuts” in this collection, and email me what really happened to whom and why, will win a book signed by me and mailed to you.  The first three individuals (teens, I hope) to send the correct answer to my email inbox at SergioTroncoso(AT)gmail(DOT)com will win a free book.  Will you have a clue?  Well, that is the question.  Read the following paragraphs carefully.

I wrote “Nuts” because I wanted to write a story to make the reader think about what really happened in the story and to prompt the reader to figure out the puzzle.  I believe in ‘close reading,’ that is, reading so that every word is weighed carefully for its meaning, so that every detail is understood for why it is there.  “Nuts” is written for that careful reader who will not miss any detail, and whether a detail matches other details in the story.  I also want the reader to ponder what is in between the lines of the story, to understand the relationships between the characters, and to appreciate what is left unsaid between them.  I have two teenage sons, and one of them is allergic to tree nuts, so I also wanted to write about that hidden, quotidian danger he faces.  By the way, my sixteen-year-old figured out what really happened in “Nuts” on his first reading!

So about those clues.  First, the cookie clue.  Think about the cookies, and every instance in which the cookies are mentioned.  Compare these instances.  What do they tell you about what really happened?

Second, have you seen the movie “Juno”?  You better run to Netflix, if you haven’t.  Remember the relationships between Juno, Bleeker, and Katrina de Voort?  How is a scene in that movie and what is meant (but not said) about these relationships important to understanding what Zendon is feeling about his friend Ethan?  Are there any other clues to indicate what Zendon is thinking, but not saying, to his friend Ethan?

Third, sometimes we hear names incorrectly, especially during an emotionally charged moment.  Does 'Sookie' sound like 'Soupy'?

Fourth, isn't that a strange name for the person who writes Ethan that email at the end, ‘Doable HePrey’?  Did you know that ‘Sergio Troncoso’ can also be ‘Cooing Roosters’ or ‘Scrooges Riot On’?  I love anagrams, don’t you?

Finally, once you decipher the meaning behind the above clues, what can you tell me about Ethan’s moment of decision in the email, the response he almost sends, versus the response he actually sends at the end?  That is the coup de grâce to understanding the meaning of this mystery.

For the prize, I will give the three winners a signed copy of You Don’t Have A Clue.  You can give your friends your unsigned copy, challenge them to solve and understand the mystery, and you can keep your prize book.  We need to encourage everybody to read.  I hope if I see you at a reading you will say hello, and tell me how you solved the mystery and how you can’t wait to get into another story to solve the puzzle, to explore a new world, to gain a new perspective, to relish that shiver scurrying up your spine when you say to yourself, 'Aha!  Now I know!'

The Consumer Used and Abused

Why can’t corporations be more flexible?  Why can’t they put a dollar value on trust, which could be engendered by being more consumer-friendly?  Let me tell you about a few different experiences, frustrations, and one triumph in my little island of consumerism.  I know the Republicans are currently trumpeting how “the free market” can do everything better than government, how businesses are the solution, not the problem, for reviving the American economy.  Let me give you my more complex view.

I love my iPhone.  It has truly changed my life, and I owe it to my sons, who converted me to Macs a few years ago.  Our family, amazingly, has four iPhones, two MacBooks, a MacBook Pro, and an iMac.  We have become avid customers, but only after Aaron and Isaac were able to awake me from my PC-Dell hypnosis.  You can’t see this, but I’m shuddering, remembering the dozens of hours wasted with PC reps trying to solve the stupidest problems.

But today I texted one of my sons, and scolded him for going over his data limit.  In about a week, he zoomed past the measly 200 MB of monthly data, the cheapest data plan ($15) offered by AT&T for the iPhone.  I’ll be paying extra for the over-usage, that is, $15 for the next 200 MB of data.  Of course, if I had originally signed up for the next highest data plan, at $25 per month, I would have gotten 2 GB, or ten times the data usage.  But then I would be paying $25, instead of $15, per month.  The company is basically trying to force you to switch to the higher data plan.

Why can’t the cheapest data plan be $15 per month for, say, 1 GB?  It seems the cheapest plan, at 200 MB, is meant to be exceeded by even the casual data user, so you’ll be trapped into paying $15 for every extra 200 MB of over-usage.  What a rip!  I feel as if I’m being used and abused by AT&T, not a customer, but an easy mark.  And I haven’t even mentioned the two-year AT&T contract imprisonment I need to endure to use my iPhone.

Again, a credit card I have owned for decades, from a major credit card company that adores the color of money and metals on its plastic, has sneakily changed the amount of time I have to pay my bill every month.  From what used to be about 25 days, to now about 8 days!  Again, another trap.  Forget to pay this credit card for a few days, and they have you by the cojones, so to Sarah-speak.

Is it me, or do you also feel besieged as a consumer?  At every turn, instead of service, another trap.  Forget to read the fine print, or just act normally, and you will be forking over the fines.  I know, some Republican Tea-Partier will say, “Caveat Emptor!  The market is king!”  But I know many of them feel just as used and abused as I do.  I know because I’ve asked a few of them in private.  But in public, at social gatherings where the walls have ears, or web cams, they must repeat their holy mantras.

My question is this: have American consumer businesses become more predatory over time?  Is there a way to measure this?  If these are not just my experiences, but part of a broader trend, why?  Have we somehow lost a social contract with businesses, in which consumers should be willing to pay good money for products and services, but also should expect these products and services to be reasonable and reliable?  Why haven’t businesses more often put a value on trust?  Trust is hard to quantify, but it is real.  Because if I trust a business, believe you me, I will go back to it, even if it makes an occasional mistake.  That’s loyalty, and it’s worth something.

Let me tell you how my trust was recently restored.  Last week, on the black MacBook I use to type this blog, the screen froze as I opened my FireFox browser.  The rainbow Apple wheel spun without point or purpose for ten, fifteen minutes.  I turned the computer off, and turned it on, but now the dreaded question-mark folder appeared on the screen.  No half-bitten gray Apple.  Nada.

I took my three-and-a-half-year-old MacBook to an Apple store in Manhattan.  Apple Genius Nicoya —I will never forget her name— told me my hard drive had failed.  Kaput.  Dead as plastic.  I told her I had AppleCare, but she noted my AppleCare coverage had expired in May, after three years exactly.  There’s no renewal.  That’s it.  I was screwed.  I must have looked puppy-dog-died devastated, not because I lost the info on my drive —I didn’t, I had backed up everything— but because I truly loved working on this MacBook.  Nicoya stared at me for a moment, then declared, “You know, you never used your AppleCare once, and that’s a shame.  Why don’t I just give you a free hard drive?  Can you wait a few minutes while I install it?”

Steve Jobs, Apple Genius extraordinaire, if you ever read this blog, find this Nicoya, and give her a big fat raise and a nice kiss.  You know, nothing overtly sexual, just a thank-you peck.  My family and I will be buying Apple products for years because of her.  That’s what customer loyalty means.

Encouraging kids to read, encouraging kids to excel in school

This past week has been a momentous one for our family: our fourteen-year-old son has received letters of acceptance from the best public and private high schools in New York City. This has not happened because we are lucky or because we have a lot of money. Our son’s hard work and focus, as well our creating an environment at home for learning beyond school, have been keys to his success. I contrast my son’s school application experience with my own. I went to a poor high school on the Mexican-American border in which a majority of the students probably did not attend college, yet I was successful in El Paso and later at Harvard and Yale because of similar practices at home. How can we encourage our kids to excel in school? This is what I have learned from my parents, and as a parent.

Read to your children early, and regularly, when your kids can’t even walk across the living room floor. Reading to very young children establishes an emotional bond with reading, and with you, a bond they want to recreate as they get older. Laura and I read to both of our sons every night, for about half an hour each, for years. Not surprisingly, both our sons are voracious readers, reading about two or three books a week. We read, they watch us read, we’ve read with them, we buy books and regularly visit libraries, and we limit TV time. All these things create an environment of reading for recreation, to explore ideas, to revel in the magic of storytelling.

Give your children the space and attention to follow their intellectual interests. I loved creating gadgets and traps as a kid in Ysleta, all manner of Rube Goldberg machines. My father allowed me to use his tool shed, to experiment with his construction materials, to bring back ‘junk’ from the dump, which for me was treasure. He taught me how to use his tools; he taught me how to use a LeRoy for drafting when I expressed an interest in his work. Similarly my younger son loves to build, and we often cart old computers, monitors, and fax machines we find on the street for my son to create something new with them. It is about paying attention to what your child is interested in, and giving him or her the space and opportunity to follow that interest.

Teach your child the value of hard work and limits. This was what I told my kids. ‘As long as you do well in school, you have your freedom, your TV time, your time on the computer. But if you are not finishing your homework on time, and finishing it well, then I will be on you like a rash.’ Now I rarely have to tell them anything, because we made it a practice for them to finish their homework first, right after school, before they turn on the TV, have a playdate, or just relax. It was a work habit that became their habit over time. I do not expect them to be perfect; I just want them to live up to their potential. It is gratifying to see the results, and how they have internalized doing well in school for their benefit, and not for mine.

Love your kids, and listen to them carefully. Remember, it is about time with them, and guiding them to become the best person they want to be, and not about money or fancy trips or false accolades. Sometimes I have to tease out of my children an issue that is bothering them. At other times I see an issue, overscheduling for example, that they are grappling with, but have not yet identified. You sit down and talk to them, not to tell them what to do, but to brainstorm the problem, to offer possible solutions, to get them to resolve the problem in a way that works for them. Just letting them know that they are not alone and that they can bring problems to you to discuss is already a victory in your relationship with your child. It is hard work and time-consuming, and I have been humbled repeatedly by the process. But I adapt and learn, and I always keep trying to be a better father.