Woman Hollering Creek & The House on Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros (Author / Narrator)

The colorful Hispanic Southwest comes alive in Woman Hollering Creek, while The House on Mango Street follows a young girl growing up in the dilapidated Hispanic section of Chicago. Read by the author.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Poetry, Latinx, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

Audio Cassette

First published March 31, 1992

About the author

Sandra Cisneros is internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation.

Cisneros is the author of two novels The House on Mango Street and Caramelo; a collection of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek; two books of poetry, My Wicked Ways and Loose Woman; and a children's book, Hairs/Pelitos.

She is the founder of the Macondo Foundation, an association of writers united to serve underserved communities (www.macondofoundation.org), and is Writer in Residence at Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Sandra Cisneros' writing. It's whimsical, observational, funny, and perfectly bilingual.

My favorite story from this collection is Eleven (found on page 6). "What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are--underneath the year that makes you eleven."

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

left me feeling proud, strong, emotional

[VJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed the bilingual aspect. The stories were a bit odd to me, but I read every one. Picked the book up because of the title and the story that went with it was ok and explained the source of the title.

[Linda]

I liked Eyes of Zapata the most.

[Juanita · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are the confessions of a wildfire, woven with wisps of smoke and emotion and fragility. There’s nothing that hasn’t already been mentioned. If you want to feel raw, read this book.

[Shanedra Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't like this book. And for that same reason, I like this book. I have never read a book so raw, so honest, so full of realness and transparency. I felt dirty, ashamed, sorrowful, emotional and emotionless, so many different emotions, sometimes at the same time, sometimes separate. A story that will stick to me is probably the one about the 13 year old who fell in love with her rapist, or thought she was in love with her rapist. Favorites of mine are the last two entries. (Flavio is a DOG! He doesn't love LUPITA! And poor Lupe, a stool for his sick poetry.)

I read this for my Spanish class this year, and I am not too sure what to write about it on the test upcoming Saturday. But overall, very strong and raw book. I am used to those fairy tale endings and happy feelings movies often give you, but from the start, I didn't get this kind of vibe. I am definitely interested in reading more of Sandra Cisneros's work. Possibly The House on Mango Street.

[Leah Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️ I am giving this book a two as I found it a very basic and somewhat stereotypical coming of age story. I suppose an additional factor to my rating comes from the fact that it was assigned summer reading for me thus making it slightly less enjoyable. Nonetheless, the plot to me was rudimentary. While some may call it illustrative and easy to visualize, I feel that when conveying a message as deep as the one in this book, more pages could have been spent further developing the characters and the plot. If you are looking for a light, light read, this is the book for you. While I would certainly never complain about book length, I feel that the brevity of this novel made it slightly more elementary.

[Lacey Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are the kinds of stories you need to let roll around in your brain in order to fully appreciate them, at least for me as I do not come from the culture she writes of. There was a bit of overlap in the stories - common characters and situations - so it didn’t entirely feel like a collection of short stories. I really enjoyed the imagery and her focus on female characters. Bien Pretty was my favorite of the collection.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sandra Cisneros writes great short stories, and I bet her novels are just as good. In preparation for a visit to Chicago, she is one of the windy cities famous authors who is new to me. She has a quick, crisp, humorous perspective that entertains. Chicago does not figure in this collection, oh well.

[Zoe Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a really good book with powerful voice and meaning behind it. It highlights aspects of society, specifically the roles of Latina women, and the ways they are confined to expectations. It highlights harsh topics and discusses issues some may not even realize the severity of until reading this book. It is truly inspirational and leaves an important message of never giving up and being your true self.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is her best work that I like

[Lauren Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books in recent years. Incredible beauty in the writing. It spoke to my soul.

[boop · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful, beautiful writing i cant describe enough just how good it is
my favorite story was bien pretty and eleven although i liked all of them
just... real good

[Analise Banko · Rating 4 out of 5]

✨✨🥶🥶

[gilliana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very confused and it was kinda weird

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

[Hawraa Khudier]

So bad.
How I come to read this book, I don’t know how !!
Boring. Didn’t even got the purpose of it.

[Dylan Stobie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The house on mango street is an okay fiction book. It starts with Esperanza talking about where she has lived. After that you learn a lot about her personal feelings of herself, her house, and other people. Later on, she heard from the three sisters and one of her friends that she will come back to mango street even if she leaves. to that she does leave, but to comeback.. This is the author's first book, and it is an okay one. Esperanza is the protagonist and the antagonist because she is commonly judging others before getting to know them. I think this book was well written because you can open up the book to any page and understand what is going on. It was about what I expected it to be. I would recommend this book to anyone since it has no violence and is somewhat a easy read.

[Tyler Bice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find it hard to relate to the narrator and the authors writing style however it is a good story and well written. The story is kind of hard to follow even though its chronological as she explains her life beginning leaving her family to go to the united states with it seems as a setup husband. Everything is planned out but she seems to glamorize her life to make it better and compares it to soap operas. She wants her life to be like a soap opera really bad and her husband turns out to be beating her all of the time. She doesn't know how to handle it and eventually the nurses at the hospital have to help her because she is pregnant with black and blue marks all over her. I think i just find it hard to follow because i do not come from a mexican background and do not understand the Spanish terms. I also find it hard to relate with the fact the husband beats his wife because i would never do this and it seems to be hereditary and why they got married in the first place. It seems like a messy relationship and the narrator just tries to live in a false reality until she can't take it anymore.

[Kiana Cedano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kiana Cedano

The House On Mango Street By : Sandra Cisneros

Summary :
The 2nd book i read over the summer was “The house on mango street “ by Sandra Cisneros. The book is about 44 short stories and the one telling them all is a young girl who recently moved to mango street with her mom and sisters . Esperanza meets some girls who are exactly like her poor, spanish and hard-headed. The main conflict of the story is that Esperanza does not want to be like everyone else, she hates where she lives because it is not like every house she see on television.

Review:
My review of the book is i really liked the book because it showed me that no matter how much money you make or have it should not describe who you are as a person.The book made me mad, sad and happy because i kinda felt bad for esperanza because she was always getting treated wrong. This book relates to my own life because i am the oldest of six and i always get treated differently . Since Mr.Henderson recommend this book to me, i recommend any person who goes through a lot in life

[Malbadeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might have enjoyed this collection more had it not been the stepping stone for fellow students to share their "knowledge" of Mexican culture/oppressed woman/poverty etc, etc, etc, It's difficult to appreciate a story when everyone is so busy wrapping it in personal experience (or worse - personal assumptions) that we're not able to see it as ONE persons story with the potential to reveal something new or deeper.

[Ervis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not very good. It was a little boring reading it. its about this girl who grows up in mango street, Chicago. She is not perfect but people criticize her. She grew up on a Puerto Rican neighborhood. Her parents are both Mexican and she has 6 other siblings. overall it was ok. i would recommend it to middle school kids.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words words words. She is a wizard with creating sounds, smells, scents - oh the complete mastery of creating place - with her words. Love the images of life Cisneros crafts with her paragraphs. If I ever write, Cisneros is one of my examples of mastering the depiction of a place and time in as succinct sentences/phrases as possible.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was okayy, it tells a story of a girl growing up in chicago and about her house on mango street (hence the title). There are many ups and downs and many people she meets that are positive and negative influences on her. She wants to be better than what people expect her to be.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of short stories. I am always amazed at her writing style. There are moments in the book where she writes an entire paragraph with only one sentence...(which goes against what I teach my students about a paragraph being 3-5 sentence)

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read The House on Mango St in college and remember loving it. Being entranced and excited. This book of stories was true to that memory. Beautifully told and painfully painted depictions on the female experience.

[Norma Avila]

This book is written beautifully. The tragic situations that are dealt with inspirational and caring individuals were captivating and interesting to read about. I always look forward to reading anything by this author.

[meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

oooooooooooooo

[Angie]

I read this so long ago, I can't even tell you if I liked it or not. I just added it to create the illusion that I read many different books.

[Tinkerbelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

i REALLY LIKE THIS BOOK CAUSE IT WAS FUNNY AND KEEPED ME INTERESTED.