Vintage Cisneros

by Sandra Cisneros

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern The celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street “knows both that the heart can be broken and that it can rise and soar like a bird. Whatever story she chooses to tell, we should be listening for a long time to come" ( The Washington Post Book World ) .

A winner of the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature and the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, Sandra Cisneros evokes working-class Latino experience with an irresistible mix of realism and lyrical exuberance.

Vintage Cisneros features an excerpt from her bestselling novel The House on Mango Street , which has become a favorite in school classrooms across the country. Also included are a chapter from her novel, Caramelo ; a generous selection of poems from My Wicked Wicked Ways and Loose Woman ; and seven stories from her award-winning collection Woman Hollering Creek .

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Short Stories, Literature

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 6, 2004

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

[Nia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And my happiest memory? The night I came to live with you, of course. I remember how your skin smelled sweet as the rind of a watermelon, like the fields after it has rained. I wanted my life to begin there, at that moment when I balanced that thin boy's body of yours on mine, as if you were made of balsa, as if you were boat and I river.”

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of writings by award winning author (PEN Center West Award for best fiction) MacArthur Foundation Fellowship awardee and early Seattle Arts & Lectures speaker Sandra Cisneros. The book Book provides an excellent sampling of the writers’ beautiful, fiery and haunting poems and stories from her novels.

[2 Gabe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short story is a good one. I, fortunately, did not have the same experience as Rachel on my eleventh birthday, but I felt a different pain, physical pain, when I was hit in the collarbone by a paintball on my eleventh birthday.

[Claudia Fernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
This is not a full book, it contains excerpts from different works by Sandra Cisneros and honestly I think it's a great thing if you don't know which of her books to read first or you just want a taste to see if you'd like to read more from her. I definitely will!

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best of Cisneros all in one book. How can you go wrong.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Cisneros writing and this felt like such a throwback since I hadn’t read House on Mango street since middle school. I love her metaphors. They’re unique yet accessible and resonant. My only complaint about this was that I think I’d prefer just reading one of her other novels or her short story books rather than having the book be a smattering of different works. She captures the psychology of so many types of experiences well from kids being picked on to a woman being one of a man’s many lovers.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love about Sandra Cisneros is how well she describes the small moments in life. She doesn't often provide a bed-to-bed synopisis that gives a broad overview of a variety of events. Rather, she takes the moments that might seem unimportant or forgetten and tells that story. I have used bits and pieces of her stories in many writing mini lessons to help young writers explore possibilities for writing topics. I've also used her writing as a great example of developing voice in writing. I particularly love her chapter entiled "Eleven." It starts with, "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" (p. 40).

[Briana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of Cisneros. This book includes excerpts from House on Mango Street, Carmelo and Woman Hollering Creek.

[S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

More books for the latino literature class. And more to come....

[Alma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much that it is one of the few I re-read constantly. Plus, it's divided into very short sections given that it is a compilation of many of her works.