The House on Mango Streetis one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. In English my name means hope, she says. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.”

Told in a series of vignettessometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyousCisneross masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair LewissMain Streetor Toni MorrisonsSula,it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling ones story and of being proud of where you’re from.