Juvenile Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. The small shops and battered houses of Lucia Street are a far cry from the uppercrust neighborhood and the posh boarding school Monica Ramos has left behind when she moves to the barrio. Monica looks up and down the street from the dilapidated house that was her mother's childhood home and decides unhappily that this will be a summer that she will never forget. She is right, in part. She does not realize, however, that the miserable summer that she expects will turn into quite an adventure. From the moment Monica discovers a mysterious letter in a musty hiding place forgotten since her mother's death, she is drawn into a web of questions surrounding the disappearance of her neighbor, El Pintor. THE SUMMER OF EL PINTOR is an exciting mystery novel for young readers.