The House on Mango Street

I recently read Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, and I have to say that I appreciated the little vignettes, as opposed to one long piece. Not that it wouldn't have been wonderful, but the short pieces were packed with powerful sentences and ideas that lent itself to digestion. It is narrated by a girl, "Esperanza Cordero," who grows up in a poor Chicago urban area. From her musings on her "clunky" name, to the different ways that women and men are viewed and treated, Cisneros really packs a lot of sadness and self-loathing into some of these little pieces. The actual house is a source of embarrassment for the narrator, with its peeling paint and creeky doors. There is plenty for young Hispanic kids to identify with in here, though I feel that many of them would be best illuminated by a teacher, so that students can feel the full impact of Cisneros' rarely wasted words. As an adult, I feel that I could read this book another two or three times before I fully understand all that she had to say. It's powerful, and soft, and I think that many urban Hispanic adolescents could not do much better than to read this book.
By Richard Prock