The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Cisneros, Ernesto. Standing Tall. Harper Collins Publishers, 2022.

As the novel opens, best friends, Marco Honeyman and Isaac Castillo, are starting their first day of middle school. Both boys have significant personal issues with their fathers. Marco’s father is largely and purposefully absent from his son’s life, and he disrespects the areas Marco excels in, intellectual endeavors, and really only takes pride in the areas Marco fails in, namely athletics. Isaac’s father loves him deeply and wants to play a more active role in his son’s life, but he struggles with alcohol abuse and frequently breaks promises to Isaac because of that.

Isaac is an athlete, and he is very sociable. Everybody likes Isaac, but he feels no need to impress anybody, and this draws people ever more closely to him. Marco is different from many of the other middle schoolers. He does not easily recognize social cues, and his sense of style is quite different from other middle schoolers. He is also incredibly short and has not gone through puberty yet. While this can make Marco a target for bullies, his natural charm draws many into friendship with him.

As school starts, Marco gets excited about finding other students with interests like his in his honors classes, but Marco’s friends make Isaac feel stupid because he does not always know what they are talking about. One boy, Dos Equis, is a great basketball player, and he tries to befriend Isaac, but the two get annoyed with each other because Dos Equis warns Isaac against hanging out with dorks, and Isaac does not like that Marco has been referred to as a dork.

The only classes Marco and Isaac have together are P.E. and lunch. In P.E. a boy named Byron taunts Marco, and Isaac runs as fast as he can to beat the older boy in a race to defend Marco’s honor. Isaac does beat the boy, but then he learns that while he was hanging back with Marco, Byron actually ran an extra lap than he did. Isaac vomits on the teacher’s shoes.

Isaac is sent to the nurse’s office because he vomited, and when his father finally picks him up an hour and a half later, he knows that his father is drunk. He knows he should not get in the car with his father when he has been drinking, but he does not want other adults to know of his father’s drinking because he may not be allowed to spend time with his dad then. Because of this, Isaac makes the poor decision to get in the car with his dad, and they go to his dad’s apartment which has been all decked out in an attempt to make Isaac want to spend more time there.

Marco has decided to try out for the basketball team in an attempt to get his own father to be proud of him. He believes that if he works really hard before tryouts, he can become good enough to make the team. He injures his finger practicing incessantly, and Isaac works hard to figure out how to help Marco make the team despite the boy’s inability to shoot or dribble. Marco makes the team because he has inadvertently made it seem like he is as good as Isaac through his conversations, and he does not have to dribble or shoot during tryouts because of his injured finger.

The two friends show their loyalty to each other through the ways they help one another. Isaac spends too much time helping Marco with basketball and fails to get his work done. He decides to stay up late to finish his homework when Marco comes in having a panic attack because he cannot solve a math problem. Isaac knows how much school matters to Marco, so after Marco falls asleep, he stays up until almost 5 a.m. finishing his friend’s math problems which are far more difficult than his own. When Marco realizes that Isaac, who has been trying really hard to stay on top of his own work, failed to do his own because he was helping him, he skips his first period class, something he ordinarily would never do, and finishes Isaac’s homework.

Isaac’s father eventually gets in a drunk driving accident. Because of this, Isaac finally tells his mother about his father’s drinking. His father heals from his significant injuries, and he is able to attend the tournament game and has stopped drinking. Marco’s father agrees to go to the game as well. Marco performs very poorly in the first game and refuses to even put on his jersey for the second. When all but a few players get very sick after the second game, the team only has four players to go up against a very good team in the championship game. The four hold their own and keep the score within one point. Isaac gets injured and continues to play despite the injury and fatigue because he wants to earn the trophy for Marco. Marco sees how hard everyone is working for him, and he decides to join the game as well. There, he is able to outsmart Byron, who is now playing for the other team, and because of Marco’s clever moves, Isaac scores the game winning shot. By this point, Marco has realized what support he does have, and he no longer cares as much about making his father proud of his athletic ability. The two friends are proud of their accomplishments by the end of the novel.