by Sandra Cisneros
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| List Price: | $10.95 |
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Product Description
Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, The House on Mango Street is Sandra Cisneros's greatly admired novel of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Acclaimed by critics, beloved by children, their parents and grandparents, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, it has entered the canon of coming-of-age classics.
Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous, The House on Mango Street tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, whose neighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty. Esperanza doesn't want to belong--not to her rundown neighborhood, and not to the low expectations the world has for her. Esperanza's story is that of a young girl coming into her power, and inventing for herself what she will become.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 If you want a bed time story, this book will do the trick in half a page, 2008-08-01
This book is SO boring. It took me 2 weeks to get past the first 2 pages, then another 3 months to read half the book. I have to finish this piece of crap by the end of summer (school assignment), and the district is making us do an 8 page packet! However, this book is good for something. If your having trouble sleeping, don't take pills, read this book, I guarantee you'll be asleep by the end the fist paragraph.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Hairs!!!, 2008-07-22
Hairs chapter is my favorite.....it's short and sweet.....as a latina, i can really appreciate having immediate family so rich in differences....that is the beauty of being latino, is that we are so unique!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Disorganized and uncomfortable, 2008-07-13
I remember reading this book in seventh grade with my entire class. Perhaps I should have enjoyed it; it appears to be directed towards that age group exactly. Instead, I, an avid reader, struggled with this odd, rather poor book.
"The House on Mango Street" is recommended for girls in middle school, and point in fact, that's exactly when this teen read it, just a few years ago. Yet as I look back on those two months in English class, it occurs to me that perhaps the fault in this book lies there. It's written as though for young readers - simplistic, short, and pale - and yet the comments about the quality and importance are all things that even the smartest and brightest pre-teen readers would be entirely unable to appreciate and enjoy.
To me, these stories symbolized what was wrong with literature. This book is entirely disorganized, chaotic, and very difficult to follow. The writing style is stupid, simplistic, and simply confusing, providing no room for thought or even interesting analysis. Looking back on it, the stories probably have another level of meaning aside from the story themselves - symbolism or even just hard, cold facts. Yet this book, directed towards this specific age group (Amazon itself recommends this for pre-teens), simply fails to impress. The writing is the kind some might love and others hate. Most young readers will most likely hate it, as I did, failing to see how this could possibly mean something more.
I can see myself returning to this collection of random stories and appreciating it, understanding its literary worth and simplistic importance. And yet it is still a children's book masquerading as an adult book, or an adult book masquerading as a teen book. Either way, it fails to capture either audience.
I'd say absolutely NOT recommended to middle-school age kids, and for anyone else, do some extensive research before reading this loosely written, confusing collection of vignettes.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
worst book i have ever read, 2008-07-11
this is by far one of the worst books i have ever encountered. Cisneros is a horrible author who knows nothing about writing a well organized book that actually makes sense. I wouldn't reccommend it to my worst enemy
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Poverty, Cultural Isolation, 2008-07-08
The House on Mango Street / 0-679-73477-5
The House on Mango Street is a touching collection of short vignettes centering around the author's childhood and childhood home. The vignettes take a long, hard look at the lives of these children and young women who find themselves lost in a poverty and a culture which makes them feel reduced in value. Basic services such as a home, clothing, and education are provided, but without love - the children feel intensely aware of the fact that they are unwanted, the designated dregs of society (the white children tell them that they are leaving the neighborhood because too many of the 'wrong types' of people are moving in.
The girl children are also introduced - sometimes violently - to the painful realities of womanhood in a poverty stricken culture. One girl is denied by her much-older husband any right to leave the house, ever, because he worries that she might find a life, interests, even love outside of him. She wastes away slowly, trapped in a life of unhappiness and monotony. Other girls are coerced into sexual activity by their peers, and the parents turn a blind eye, figuring that it has always been this way and always will.
The author's despair is evident in every word. She wants to escape, to get away, but she also feels guilty for hating so intensely her community and culture. She cannot separate the good parts of her culture from the bad parts which are less a matter of culture and more a matter of poverty, lack of education, and disease. In the end, she vows to leave, but to never forget - and, perhaps, someday to return, and help.
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