The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
Music and Mind

The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street is 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 vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, 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 one’s story and of being proud of where you’re from.

More Non-Juvenile Books

  • In Good Dirt, the daughter of an affluent Black family confronts the lingering effects of a childhood tragedy in which her brother was shot, shattering their lives and a cherished heirloom. As Ebby Freeman navigates her high-profile romance and the ensuing media frenzy, she flees to France, only to discover that the past - and the stoneware jar that symbolizes it - holds the key to her future.

  • Growing Up Biden details Valerie’s decades-long professional career in politics, and the central role she played in her brother’s life as an insightful adviser, an ever-loyal advocate and best friend.