It is the day of the Fiesta for the opening of the new school, and everyone is in gay spirits except Pedro. The new school means that he will have to learn to read, along with all the other boys and girls of the little Mexican village. But what good will reading be for the great Pedro Lopez, the future bullfighter?

Pedro is so stubborn about it that his friends start a ‘Don’t-speak-to-Pedro drive.’ They are angry with him, because on the day that every boy and girl has learned to read, they will write a letter to the President of the country, and there will be another gay fiesta. Of course, Pedro is spoiling their reward.

No matter what they do or say, Pedro will not change his mind. Only when he sets forth on the bus to Mexico City to work in the bull ring, does he at last see that it is good to know how to read. The strange way this comes about and makes the story end very happily will surprise you just as much as it does Pedro and all his friends.

From the dust jacket