Love is a good thing - so true in The Spark and Fire of It, this classic one-act romance: two young people smitten to the point of delirium and a gruff father who will have none of it. The father sees his daughter's suitor only as a penniless lad with nothing to offer. But the young woman's mother sees her own husband in the young man, remembering a time when he, too, was an empty-handed suitor.

Francisco Perez Lopez, Spanish by birth but raised in France, was a Republican volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. He began as a recruit at the age of twenty and emerged a platoon leader. He became a prisoner, a medic, a favorite among nuns, and then an escapee. Gary Soto's condensed but sensitive retelling is a gripping tale of human dignity and one man's unflagging commitment to justice.