Writing styles vary widely and truly diverse however, Gary Soto's stands out among them all. By comparing two different stories by Gary Soto, it becomes clear that no one writes in quite the same way. In fact, most if not all of his stories have some kind of relationship with mr. Soto's life. Most of these real life connections are from Gary Soto's childhood. This paper will examine the similarities and differences between "Mother and Daughter" and "The Jacket".

The first book to examine would be mother and daughter. Mother and daughter is the story of a poor mother and her daughter, Yollie who are having a hard time financially and trying to live a happy life. The main character is a Yollie, a teenage girl. The teen and her mother have financial problems and there are many things that they want but they can't have those things. In a small part of the story, Yollie is faced with a problem, she wants to go to a school dance, but her mother can't afford a new dress. So she and her mother decide to use her old summer dress and paint it black. The story, as in most of Garry's stories has it's happy times and sad times and …show more content…
"You and me. We don't have to be poor. (Soto 5)". In the jacket, the boy's mother purchased him a cheap jacket that, according the boy, wasn't all too great. In both stories the kids, at one point or another, reach a clothing problem, in mother and daughter, Yollie goes to a dance with her old summer dress since they can't afford a new one, "The best mrs. Moreno could do was buy Yollie a pair of black shoes with velvet bows and fabric dye to color her white summer dress black". The boy from the jacket receives a jacket from his mother, however the jacket was evidently, extremely undesirable since he ended up calling the jacket his "ugly