The House on Mango Street

Cisneros, S. (1991). The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books.

 

The House on Mango Street is a book of VIGNETTES that tell about a young Hispanic girls life from her childhood. The short chapter book is very easy to read and has many different sections so if you only wanted to teach one part of the small book you could because the chapters are not tied together they're more like poetry in that they are very independent of the other sections. Cisneros uses many SIMILES to show her time growing up on Mango Street especially in the section called "Hair", she talks about how every one's hair smells differently and compares the texture of her hair to a broom. She also uses this book to talk about becoming a woman and learning about things that happen when your older. She begins to talk about girls who would do anything for boys and etc. I would call this book a FORESHADOWING book for COMING OF AGE novels for young Hispanic students but I would also say that it is very good for literature circles because it shows how different cultures value different things as well as how different cultures speak to one another differently.

 

This small chapter book would be great to introduce students to VIGNETTES and allow them to use a piece of their life to write their own. I used this example in my own undergraduate experience because I wrote about different parts of my life that I considered key experiences in getting me to my undergraduate program and it actually became one of my favorite things that I completed because I got to reflect on my life as well as things that had happened around me to others.