The theme of "Growing Up" by Gary Soto is that at some point everyone in the world meets the stage of having new interests and opinions of things and that we aren't all the same, we make mistakes and learn from them. For Example on page 2 of 8 it says, " They would have to wait until the last day before they could go to Great America. It wasn't worth the boredom." This shows that Maria is beginning to have different ideas of how the trip effects her.(Awesome, Bored, Fun, Horrible etc.) Another example is that on page 8 of 8 it says, " They're heartless, she muttered. Here I am worrying about them, and there they are having fun. She thought of the rides they had gone on, the hours of body surfing, the handsome boys she didn't get to see, the
