Reading Response: The House on Mango Street

               I have learned what a child’s innocence is like as I read this book. The House on Mango Street is told through a young girl’s voice and her maturity shows. Multiple times I have found myself explaining how the grown up world is to Esperanza in my head. I want to teach her right from wrong and tell her that the things she sees going on in the lives around her are not right. Abuse is never okay and we should always help those who do not have the same privileges are we do.

            Esperanza’s friends Sally and Minerva are both abused. Sally is abused by her father and Minerva is abused by her husband. Esperanza really wants to help both of these girls, but she feels like there is nothing she can do if the girls keep going back to those who abuse them. In life we have to learn that we cannot help those who refuse to help themselves. It hurts as a child to know you have no control over a situation and some things Esperanza just can’t understand. Sally enjoys the boys’ attention, because she gets the wrong attention from her father. Esperanza didn’t understand why Sally didn’t want to be saved from having to kiss all of the boys in order to get her keys back. From the rejection of the boys and Sally, Esperanza wanted to just die.

            We can see Esperanza’s innocence and true spirit in the chapter “Bums in the Attic.” She says

“One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I’ll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house.

Some days after dinner, guest and I will sit in front of a fire. Floorboards will squeak upstairs. The attic grumble.

Rats? they’ll ask.

 Bums, I’ll say, and I’ll be happy.”

She wants to give a helping hand to anyone she can. She knows the struggle of everyday life in the poor community and wants to give back to those who have taught her a lesson.



Esperanza cries in the garden by herself after the rejection from her so called friend Sally.



Reading Response: The House on Mango Street



The House on Mango Street cover lets you know that this book is supposed to be for the women.



              I am reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. My old English teacher Mrs. Mann recommended this book to me. As I was reading this book, I realized that a passage seemed very familiar. It was the passage about her family’s hair. In our Grammar and Composition Class, we read a passage from this same book so we could write a poem in Sandra Cisneros style. I named my poem Smiles. The book is about a young Hispanic girl named Esperanza. She hates her name, because in Spanish her name means sadness and waiting. This book follows her through the random events in her life.

            Sandra Cisneros writes very different, but everything flows so well. I love how she wrote this book through a child’s actual voice. Deep down I really feel like the author is Esperanza. A lot of authors only include the child’s voice and not how they may really write or say certain things. There is no punctuation, except periods. When Esperanza is talking with her friends, you can only tell who is saying what if you are actually into the book and connecting with the characters as if you were in their discussion. Esperanza is also very relatable. I understand every feeling she has and her thoughts. She is a lot younger than I am, but she symbolizes a lot of girls.

            For some reason, every time we have an essay due I am reading a book that has a relevant topic. Esperanza is Hispanic and only lives around Hispanics. In the chapter Those Who Don’t, she is describing instances where someone of another race entered her neighborhood and judged them like she goes in their neighborhoods with caution. “All brown around here, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.” Esperanza is very open about how she feels. I laughed at this passage, because what she said was so true and I could clearly visualize her facial expressions. I look at Esperanza as a little sister for some reason. She gets involved in some things she shouldn’t and sometimes doesn’t understand where others are coming from. She needs a little guidance, but I am really enjoying reading this book.



Sandra Cisneros

Reading Response: The Secret Life of Bees

              I like to see the formation of relationships between the main character and others as I am reading a book. The Secret Life of Bees is about a girl, Lily Owen, who wants to find out about her deceased mother’s past. Lily doesn’t go alone though. She decides to take her “stand-in mother” Rosaleen . The two girls know how to survive for a while and end up right where they needed to be. Lily and Rosaleen know each other very well. Lily was practically raised by Rosaleen. The author uses a lot of saying to describe just how much Rosaleen loves Lily and Lily loves Rosaleen. They were able to show each other a side of them that no one else could ever see. “I was the only one who knew that despite her sharp ways, her heart was more tender than a flower skin and she loved me beyond reason.” No matter what Lily did, Rosaleen was there to pick her up.

            Color didn’t matter to Lily. Rosaleen was just a house maid, but to Lily she was much more. While reading this book, I could feel Lily’s pain. She wanted so badly for Rosaleen to always be there and make everything alright. Being without a mother, Lily hung on to anything that gave her love or even comfort. Lily wished that color wouldn’t be such a barrier between her and the dreams she had for Rosaleen. “I used to have daydreams in which she was white and married to T. Ray, and became my real mother. Other times I was a Negro orphan she found in a cornfield and adopted. Once in a while I had us living in a foreign country like New York, where she could adopt me and we could both stay our natural color.”

I think we have all experienced a time where we wished someone that was not blood related to us, to be a permanent part of us. I know that when I was in Elementary School, I really looked up to my meal time buddy at the Boys and Girls Club. Her name was September and she was such a nice and peaceful person. I sometimes wonder where she is in life and if I made a difference in her life like she did to in mine.

Lily and Rosaleen