In the first two stories, the main characters demonstrate a childlike tendency to exaggerate their small problems, believing that it is of the utmost importance to go on a successful date or win a baseball game. In both cases, the protagonists learn more about the everyday flow of life and gradually embrace The Challenges in the Coming-of-Age Journey. In “Broken Chain,” for example, Alfonso demonstrates a childlike self-absorption and believes that his problems are monumental. This attitude can be seen in the way he obsesses over his appearance and frets over the opinion of his crush, Sandra. Faced with the ostensibly disastrous fact that his brother Ernie will not loan him a bike for his upcoming date, Alfonso panics and imagines the worst. In this moment, Soto uses short, staccato sentences with an increasingly frantic tone to convey the boy’s tense state of mind. As the narrative states, “Shame colored his face. How could he disappoint his first date? She would probably laugh. She might even call him menso” (10).

By assuming that Sandra will mock him and call him a “dummy,” Alfonso engages in catastrophic thinking, but the conclusion of the story reflects the life lesson that such momentary fears are childlike, and interpersonal problems are rarely as dire as they initially seem. By juxtaposing the crescendo of Alfonso’s distress with the mundane solution of a brother who relents and loans him the needed bike, Soto crafts a fraternal dynamic that deescalates the previous conflict. The fully successful date with Sandra also creates a teachable moment, suggesting that situations can be salvaged even when they do not go as planned.

Much like Alfonso, Jesse, the protagonist in “Baseball in April,” is similarly focused on his appearance. When he tries out for Little League with his brother, Jesse is hyper-aware of how he looks. At one point, he sees himself as “look[ing] strong standing at the plate, bat high over his shoulder” (16). However, his attitude contrasts with Alfonso’s because rather than seeing himself as unworthy, he naïvely believes that his “look” of strength will help him make the team, not quite realizing that skill is the deciding attribute, not the appearance of skill. His attention to appearance also emerges when he and Michael return to tryouts after lunch, and Jesse “felt proud walking to the playground,” almost “as if he were a soldier going off to war” (15). With this hyperbolic description, Soto conveys the boy’s deeply self-conscious pride—as well as his expectation that other kids will admire him. When he compares himself to a soldier departing for war, Jesse assigns a level of importance to the game that would border on farcical if he weren’t so serious in his perceptions. By emphasizing Jesse’s immaturity and self-absorption, Soto presents these childlike moments as the foundation for the novel’s broader examination of The Challenges of the Coming-of-Age Journey.

In light of this theme, the two stories’ resolutions highlight different aspects of the hard road to young adulthood. In Alfonso’s case, he realizes that his problem is far from insurmountable, and the concluding descriptions are symbolic of his entire struggle. When he asks Sandra to ride on his bike with him, he struggles to pedal at first, “but once he got going, it got easier” (12). Likewise, his personal problems work themselves out as he keeps on forging a path ahead. By contrast, when Jesse’s makeshift team fails to improve and gradually loses interest in the game, he learns that baseball and looking cool are not the most important things in life. It is only April, but interest in his team fizzles out as “fewer and fewer of the players came to practice” (22), and then “one day Manuel didn’t show up” (22). As the boys and the coach lose interest, so does Jesse. As he moves on to other activities, his passing twinge of guilt over giving up baseball represents the inevitability of shifting childhood interests and the wistful disillusionment that comes with reassessing those faded passions and wondering what might have been. In this way, both Jesse and Alfonso work through their moments of immaturity and gain greater life experience by confronting and overcoming different types of disappointments.