This summer, I’ve been reading lots of books both for leisure and professionally. After each one, I’ve been posting reviews/ thoughts on my instagram (follow me! Cwilsonspanish). I wanted to share those here, since they are basically blog posts!
Here’s today’s:
So, I finished The House on Mango Street last night. I started reading it because it was recommended multiple times by other English teachers. Looking back, I realize that I have read many excerpts from this novel in textbooks, and standardized tests, and just in the sharing of good literature. However, I realize that reading those excerpts gave me a false view of the book. What initially seemed to be a poignant and sometimes impressionistic view of childhood via excerpts is still that, but so much more. It is a look at being Latinx, at being poor, at being female, at having dreams in a dreamless place. The excerpts are beautiful, but cut from the context of the novel, they lose some of their complexity and power. The book is haunting. Genuine. Tragic. Real. It echoes in my life. It resounds in who I was and who I became and who I’m hoping to be.
Given the excerpts I’d previously read, I settled in for a beautiful but carefree read. I was way off base. The book is troubling. It should be. There are moments of such intensity in this book that left me gasping for air because I was breathless reliving the common experience of being a woman. I see now that this book has layers. A young reader will read it at face value and miss much. The mature reader, having background knowledge and experiences, will read between the lines. The mature reader will read a tragic but honest piece.
-CL
@cwilsonspanish 