CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 1992)
Miata Ramirez is devastated when she discovers she's left her folklórico skirt -- her mother's skirt from Mexico -- on the schoolbus. It's Friday afternoon and Miata's supposed to wear the skirt at Sunday afternoon's folk dance. Unable to admit that she's forgotten the skirt, Miata convinces a friend to join her in a Saturday afternoon secret expedition to the fence-enclosed lot where the buses are parked. Of course, nothing turns out quite as planned in this easy to read, short novel printed in clear, large typeface. CCBC categories: Fiction For Children. 1992, Delacorte, 74 pages, $14.00. Ages 8-11.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, 1992)
Again, fourth-grader Miata Ramirez has lost something. This time it's her mother's folklOrico skirt, saved from her childhood in Mexico. Miata's costume for the church dance performance is now on board a school bus, locked up for the weekend. Unable to face her mother's scolding, Miata breaks into the bus and retrieves the garment, only to find out later that her mother has bought a new skirt as a surprise. Sorry that the old skirt may not be worn again, Miata dons both on her special day. As in previous books (Baseball in April, 1990; Taking Sides, 1991), Soto shows a mainstream audience that the lives of middle-class Hispanics resemble their own. Ultimately, however, the story is unsatisfying: Miata rescues the old skirt to avoid a lecture, not because the garment embodies a sense of time, culture, or tradition for her. A mixed showing from a talented author. 1992, Delacorte, $14.00. © 1992 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Betsy Hearne (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October 1992 (Vol. 46, No. 2))
Children's anxiety about losing something precious is certainly common enough to form the basis of a cogent story in which a nine-year-old girl leaves behind, one Friday afternoon on the school bus, a Mexican folklórico skirt that belonged to her mother as a child. Miata is supposed to perform in the skirt Sunday morning, so the intervening time is tense with her efforts to hide the loss and retrieve the skirt, a feat she manages just in time for a rather ironic surprise ending. This is light, easy reading, the dialogue natural and the Mexican-American cultural setting unaffected. Miata's family and friends are typical without becoming stereotypical, offering readers a cast and situation with which to identify, whatever their own ethnic origins. R--Recommended. Reviewed from galleys (c) Copyright 1992, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1992, Delacorte, [80p], $14.00. Grades 2-4.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, 1992)
In this cheery snapshot of a Mexican-American family in California, Miata attempts to retrieve from her schoolbus the 'folklorico' skirt she left behind. There is just enough suspense in the spare story line to hold the attention of readers new to chapter books. Category: Fiction. 1992, Delacorte, 75pp.. Ages 5 to 9. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.