It"s no wonder that Parrot in the Oven won the 1996 National Book Award for Young People"s Fiction. Victor Martinez"s lush, evocative prose leaps from the page, grabbing the reader by the throat right from the start. Not only do we witness Manuel Hernandez"s coming of age, we feel every juicy moment of it: his ache for something just out of reach, the confusion of seeing his family with new eyes, the tickle and flood of awakening passion. It"s difficult to portray transformation from the inside, but Martinez does so with grace and power.