Have a pet tarantula? No way! Or so eleven-year old Lolo thought before he found a Mexican red-leg outside the fort he built with friends Frankie and Mario. When Lolo's abuelo shows him how to capture the tarantula, Lolo names the spider Red-Legs and decides to keep it as a pet. The three friends could never anticipate that Red-Legs would become the key for turning an ordinary summer into an extraordinary one filled with unexpected adventures and new experiences. When Red-Legs is missing, the three boys and their school friend Lisa Gomez try to figure out who might have stolen - or killed - the tarantula. Is it the two bullies, Rogelio and Joker, who have been giving the boys a hard time all summer?Set in “Las Lomitas,” “the little hills” of East Los Angeles, Lolo and Red-Legs is a heartwarming middle-grade novel that offers a glimpse into the lives and culture of three close friends and their most unusual summer. Originally published in 1998, it was listed among the Best Children’s Books of the Year by Bank Street College of Education’s Children’s Book Committee. - from Amzon