The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Small But Mighty
Christmas is a special time of the year. It can be a sweet
and memorable delight, but it can also be a stocking full of extra pressures
and demands. Gifts, store bought and
homemade, decorations and preparations, food and traditions; they all take time
and money. At times it can become
overwhelming. It can feel like a frantic
ride—kind of like a monkey riding a sheepdog at a rodeo. It can be crazy.
It’s not always easy to squeeze in reading time during this
busy season. I was going to review more Christmas books just to get into the
spirit, but I find myself short on time and patience. As Sweet Brown would say, “Ain’t nobody got
time for that.” It seems the quest to find a good Christmas book has become an
extra stress. I did manage to read one more book with a Christmas setting, and
it was cute—but maybe too cute. In the
end it seemed geared toward a much younger audience, and I just couldn’t wholeheartedly
recommend it. So for Christmas book
recommendations, I am coming up empty-handed.
And instead of adding that unnecessary pressure, I decided to skip
Christmas books and just go where the wind blows me.
This week I opted for a quick read in The
House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. This book is intriguingly different in an abrupt style on
random thoughts in child’s journal. It is
narrated by a girl growing up in an impoverished Latino section of Chicago in
a sad, red house on Mango Street. My first thought when I saw such a thin and
simple book was that it couldn’t have much of an impact. I was wrong; the sparse
words in the book convey full meaning.
It seems real, honest, and thought-provoking, like Esperanza’s
realization that hips are more than just body parts. She likens a girl’s hips to being “ready and
waiting like a new Buick with the keys in the ignition.” Her observations and thoughts wander through
fields of embarrassment, naiveté, despair, sorrow, and hope with a voice
that is almost poetic at times. For example, the first time she wears high
heels and notices that men can’t take their eyes off of her friends and her,
she declares, “We must be Christmas.”
This is a book that is assigned reading in many
classrooms. But just as youth is wasted
on the young, many books assigned in school are not appreciated as much as when
you read them again as adults. Although I believe students may welcome the
brevity of the book, adults will value the content. I did.
You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky…
Sandra Cisneros, The
House on Mango Street (New York:
Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., 1984), 33.
…Diseases have no eyes. They pick with a dizzy finger anyone, just anyone.
Sandra Cisneros, The
House on Mango Street (New York:
Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., 1984), 59.
People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth.
Sandra Cisneros, The
House on Mango Street (New York:
Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., 1984), 86.
One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from.
Sandra Cisneros, The
House on Mango Street (New York:
Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, Inc., 1984), 87.
Happy Reading!
Annette
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