InThe House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros defies traditional form and grammar tocreate an honest and passionate work. Her simplicity is beautiful, as are herabundant images and metaphors.

Through the young and imaginative eyes ofthe narrator, Esperanza, Cisneros gives the reader snapshots of a childhood in animpoverished Latino family in Chicago. Each brief passage highlights an incidentor observation in her life, from the childish pleasures of a used bicycle and thecompanionship of neighborhood trees, to the disappointment of moving to MangoStreet and the guilt of losing a relative.

Gifted with effortlessstorytelling ability and poetic sincerity, Cisneros brings together these storieswith their common thread of cultural oppression of women. Esperanza watches asthe women in her life become stuck in hopeless poverty and loneliness due totheir fathers or sweet-talking boyfriends who leave them with too many children.Esperanza sees the young mothers with a baby balanced on each hip, and the oldimmigrant women desperately struggling to maintain their Mexican roots. She vowsto leave Mango Street and work as a writer, but never to forget the women whocould not escape.

Esperanza's growth into a young woman and her desire torise above her beginnings make The House on Mango Street a poignant book forstudents of any culture and background. Its concise prose makes it ideal forreading either in a single evening, or in short sections over a longer period oftime.