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Urban Underground #14
To Catch a Dream
Cesar Chavez HS Series; Dad was always depressing Abel with his pyramid stories. He was always dooming Abel to a life at the bottom of the pyramid with all the other miserable losers. No matter how much Abel struggled and clawed, he'd never get to the pinaccle of the pyramid. And his mom was absolutely sure of Abel's incompetance at whatever he said.
Written for young adults, the Urban Underground series confronts issues that are of great importance to teens, such as friendship, loyalty, drugs, gangs, abuse, urban blight, bullies, and self-esteem to name a few. More than entertainment, these books can be a powerful learning and coping tool when a struggling reader connects with credible characters and a compelling storyline. The highly readable style and mature topics will appeal to young adult readers of both sexes and encourage them to finish each novel.
Written for young adults, the Urban Underground series confronts issues that are of great importance to teens, such as friendship, loyalty, drugs, gangs, abuse, urban blight, bullies, and self-esteem to name a few. More than entertainment, these books can be a powerful learning and coping tool when a struggling reader connects with credible characters and a compelling storyline. The highly readable style and mature topics will appeal to young adult readers of both sexes and encourage them to finish each novel. Paperback books look and feel like a trade edition and are complete in just under 200 pages
Written for young adults, the Urban Underground series confronts issues that are of great importance to teens, such as friendship, loyalty, drugs, gangs, abuse, urban blight, bullies, and self-esteem to name a few. More than entertainment, these books can be a powerful learning and coping tool when a struggling reader connects with credible characters and a compelling storyline. The highly readable style and mature topics will appeal to young adult readers of both sexes and encourage them to finish each novel.
Written for young adults, the Urban Underground series confronts issues that are of great importance to teens, such as friendship, loyalty, drugs, gangs, abuse, urban blight, bullies, and self-esteem to name a few. More than entertainment, these books can be a powerful learning and coping tool when a struggling reader connects with credible characters and a compelling storyline. The highly readable style and mature topics will appeal to young adult readers of both sexes and encourage them to finish each novel. Paperback books look and feel like a trade edition and are complete in just under 200 pages
183 pages, Paperback
First published December 20, 2010
9 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Anne E. Schraff
294 books407 followersAnne Elaine Schraff grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She received both her bachelor's and master's degrees from California State University at Northridge and taught high school for ten years.
Anne paid her way through college by writing short stories for magazines. Since college she has written hundreds of stories and over eighty books including historical fiction, biographies, science books, and her favorite, fictional books for young people. She is published as both Anne Schraff and Anne E. Schraff.
Her background, which she describes as "multicultural, lower middle-class neighborhood, including African Americans, Mexican Americans, Arab Americans, and Filipino Americans," is her greatest inspiration when writing.
Anne paid her way through college by writing short stories for magazines. Since college she has written hundreds of stories and over eighty books including historical fiction, biographies, science books, and her favorite, fictional books for young people. She is published as both Anne Schraff and Anne E. Schraff.
Her background, which she describes as "multicultural, lower middle-class neighborhood, including African Americans, Mexican Americans, Arab Americans, and Filipino Americans," is her greatest inspiration when writing.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 3, 2024
The book “To Catch A Dream”, by Anne Schraff is talking about a boy [Abel Ruiz] of how he wants to achieve his dream of wanting to become a man and not have his mother worry for him all of the time. Abel’s mother treats Abel like he is still a little child that needs their parents' help. Abel's mother has more faith in his older brother because he is the ‘golden child.”
Abel Ruiz was a sixteen year old junior at Cesar Chavez High School, and he has been searching for a part time job for a long time. Abel's dream is to get his dream car and be a future chef, but his mother doesn’t believe in him. Abels’ mother does not have faith in Abel. Abels’ mother [Liza Ruiz], when she was in school, was an excellent student and popular with the boys because of her beauty. Tomas [Abel’s older brother] was bright and handsome, and he always had plenty of friends. Like his father, Abel was plain looking, was not really smart, and didn’t have as many friends as Tomas. One time when Abels’ mother was in a bitter/bad mood, she said, “God took pity on me and sent me a son who shines like the stars before sending her second son.” She didn’t know that Abel heard what he said about him and he was pretty upset. She hadn’t meant for him to hear it. (Present) When Abel couldn’t find a job, his mother suggested that he could try at the Bakery Shop. (Hours later) Abel got the job at the Bakery where there were two workers Paul and Claudia.
This book has an “reality check” mood. What the author [Anne] wrote is that divorced parents have to take care of their child, but the mother [Liza] didn’t want her daughter [Sarah] to see her father [Martin] after they divorced because he treated her [Liza] badly. Liza always felt like when her and her ex husband was together with their daughter, she felt jealous of her daughter because the father would always show more love and affection towards their daughter instead of her. When Liza didn’t want her daughter to see her father she became a really bad kid hanging out with older people, and doing dope. One night the daughter ran away from home, before she ran away she called Abel to say “run away with me” because she thought he liked her but he didn’t, so she hung up. Next early morning he woke up to the screaming and panic of his mother because they just found out that the daughter ran away and Liza called Abel's mother to inform her that he might have helped her daughter run away from home because she caught them late at night talking to each other. The police came to Abel’s house to try to get his side of the story. A couple days later the daughter is still missing and Liza has been crying non stop and has been worried about her daughter's disappearance. She wasn’t stable enough to work at the shop, so her brother who helped her get into the business came to help her out. He didn’t really seem to care that her sister's daughter went missing; he acted normal. He says that ever since her sister and her ex-husband divorced, Sarah flipped and did bad things ever since.
At first the setting was at Abel’s house talking to his mother and father about looking for jobs. Couple weeks later in that house Abel would cook something so amazing for his family and his friend [Ernesto] family. Another place that would take place is the bakery, that is where Abel found his job to make money to achieve his dream of getting a car and where he could be a man because he finally found a job. In the bakery Abel would meet the love of his life, Claudia. Claudia helped Abel a lot on his first day which got him to slowly start liking her. She's an average girl but she works very hard and also tries her best to study.
I would recommend this book to people who could have similar experiences or had someone who had the same thing. I would also recommend this to people who like suspenseful types of moods and people who would like to know what happens to someone after they go missing because you wouldn’t know if they wanted to go missing or went missing because something very happened to them.
Abel Ruiz was a sixteen year old junior at Cesar Chavez High School, and he has been searching for a part time job for a long time. Abel's dream is to get his dream car and be a future chef, but his mother doesn’t believe in him. Abels’ mother does not have faith in Abel. Abels’ mother [Liza Ruiz], when she was in school, was an excellent student and popular with the boys because of her beauty. Tomas [Abel’s older brother] was bright and handsome, and he always had plenty of friends. Like his father, Abel was plain looking, was not really smart, and didn’t have as many friends as Tomas. One time when Abels’ mother was in a bitter/bad mood, she said, “God took pity on me and sent me a son who shines like the stars before sending her second son.” She didn’t know that Abel heard what he said about him and he was pretty upset. She hadn’t meant for him to hear it. (Present) When Abel couldn’t find a job, his mother suggested that he could try at the Bakery Shop. (Hours later) Abel got the job at the Bakery where there were two workers Paul and Claudia.
This book has an “reality check” mood. What the author [Anne] wrote is that divorced parents have to take care of their child, but the mother [Liza] didn’t want her daughter [Sarah] to see her father [Martin] after they divorced because he treated her [Liza] badly. Liza always felt like when her and her ex husband was together with their daughter, she felt jealous of her daughter because the father would always show more love and affection towards their daughter instead of her. When Liza didn’t want her daughter to see her father she became a really bad kid hanging out with older people, and doing dope. One night the daughter ran away from home, before she ran away she called Abel to say “run away with me” because she thought he liked her but he didn’t, so she hung up. Next early morning he woke up to the screaming and panic of his mother because they just found out that the daughter ran away and Liza called Abel's mother to inform her that he might have helped her daughter run away from home because she caught them late at night talking to each other. The police came to Abel’s house to try to get his side of the story. A couple days later the daughter is still missing and Liza has been crying non stop and has been worried about her daughter's disappearance. She wasn’t stable enough to work at the shop, so her brother who helped her get into the business came to help her out. He didn’t really seem to care that her sister's daughter went missing; he acted normal. He says that ever since her sister and her ex-husband divorced, Sarah flipped and did bad things ever since.
At first the setting was at Abel’s house talking to his mother and father about looking for jobs. Couple weeks later in that house Abel would cook something so amazing for his family and his friend [Ernesto] family. Another place that would take place is the bakery, that is where Abel found his job to make money to achieve his dream of getting a car and where he could be a man because he finally found a job. In the bakery Abel would meet the love of his life, Claudia. Claudia helped Abel a lot on his first day which got him to slowly start liking her. She's an average girl but she works very hard and also tries her best to study.
I would recommend this book to people who could have similar experiences or had someone who had the same thing. I would also recommend this to people who like suspenseful types of moods and people who would like to know what happens to someone after they go missing because you wouldn’t know if they wanted to go missing or went missing because something very happened to them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2019
This book, To Catch A Dream authored by Anne Schraff. This story is about 2 students from Cesar Chavez High School and 1 student from a Private Catholic School who work at The Donut Shop. They get into a mess with sarah, the daughter of a bakery women in the barrio called The Donut Shop. Sarah makes a lot of trouble after her mom divorced her father. Sarah has had a distant relationship with her mother since then. The setting in this book is in the barrio were all the trouble happens. They only reason why I chose this book was because it can be relatable to others and also me.
The protagonist in this story is Abel Ruiz a sixteen year old junior in Cesar Chavez High School. And the antagonist would be Sarah. When the police had questioned everyone from the barrio about sarah, abel remembers that all the time sarah had been bothering him she would talk about looking for her father and she did. Sarah had been with her father in Rosarito Beach to be reunited with him. In the begging of the story the characters were all annoyed and scared because when Ellen, sarah's mother would blame them for stealing money from the cashier and also stealing the bakery foods. When they didn’t. But at the end of the day everyone who was worried about sarah’s run away everyone felt bad for ellen and themself wondering what could’ve happened if she wasn’t safe. But they had their moments with their families and themselves too. The theme in this story is more likely to be having family problems physically.
If I were to be in sarah’s situation I would just talk to my mother about the problem and try to work things out. Instead of bothering everyone and doing bad things just to get attention. Talking physically and mentally with each other can improve behaviors with families and friends. I really do like this book. And do recommend it to people who want to learn a lesson, about not doing things they don’t want to do just to get in more serious of troubles with family or friends.
March 9, 2023
"To Catch a Dream" by Anne Schraff. Talks about the teenage life of 16 year old, Abel Ruiz, a junior at Cesar Chavez High School and middle child of the Ruiz Family. Abel struggles to find a job, his mom is always comparing Abel to Tomas, his older brother, who is a genius and he is in college. His mom thinks he is going to be a failure, just like his dad. Abel finds a job at a donut shop and he meets Claudia Villa and Paul Morales. The 3 kids will struggle through their job when Elena Suarez, their boss, starts blaming them for lost money and stolen. Later on, Abel is blamed because Sarah escapes home and Elena calls the cops on him. Abel plans a dinner for his family and his best friends' family. The family loved what he did but his mom still thinks Abel as a loser. Abel reveals that his dream is being a chef. My favorite part of this book was the excitement i got when Abel decided to push himself to talk to Claudia and asked her out, and also when he reveals himself to his family and what his passion and dream is. I kep reading the book because I’m a teenager and I felt connected to it due to the fact that parents are sometimes hard with their kids. The only one thing I didn’t like about the book was the ending, i feel like the ending could have been something better like Abel going to a school for chefs and fulfilling his dreams.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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February 24, 2017The book was about a boy who dropped out out high school, now he works for his grandma , planting flowers and gardening then he realizes he should have stayed in school.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 22, 2011
I have read a lot of hi/lo type fiction. This title was very good for our struggling readers. It is part of a new street lit series by Saddleback called Urban Underground. I purchased the entire series, but this is the only title I have read so far. It compares quite well to the Orca Soundings and Orca Currents series, though these are about twice the length at 200 or so pages. I have had a few students check the Urban Underground books out this year and they have been pretty excited about them.
Able's mother does not think he is very capable of much. She insists that he try to get a job at the Donuts shop. When he does get the job, his boss starts missing money and starts suspecting Able and the other employees of stealing from her. Able does not want to tell his parents, as his mother already thinks he is not very capable.
Able's mother does not think he is very capable of much. She insists that he try to get a job at the Donuts shop. When he does get the job, his boss starts missing money and starts suspecting Able and the other employees of stealing from her. Able does not want to tell his parents, as his mother already thinks he is not very capable.
March 12, 2015
I really liked this book and i gave this book a 4 star because i love this author this author put every single detail about the book and the charterer for every character he gives where they live do they work do they go to school what do they do etc. Also the author has evidence for problems and solutions for example when Ernesto really liked a girl and had a girlfriend what was his evidence for solving it. Also the author has so many problems in the book so that each character has a problem and then shows people work together or alone to solve each problem and solve other peoples problems.
February 14, 2011
This continues the Urban Underground series featuring Hispanic teens at Cesar Chavez High School. Abel faces up to his mother who thinks he will never amount to anything and vows to make his dream of becoming a chef come true..
April 8, 2015
absolutely loved this book. learned something from the situation with Sarah and her mom, Elena. i was kind of upset at one point when Elena tried to pin the stealing on Paul, but in the end Abel saved the day and he and Claudia's job. Elena and Sarah were reunited and it was all good after that
October 10, 2012
We all need a friend like Ernesto to remind us that the fight for our dreams is crucial & critical. The story simply gave me hope.
October 24, 2014
Its pretty cool because is about the problem that most teenager goes through with their, when they believe what you can do.
January 10, 2018
This book is really good. This story made me think a lot causes like this around the world. Young people with limited resources that had to work really hard to get what they want.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews