Pick up a book by award-winning author Sandra Cisneros or discover a novel that you might like if you enjoy Cisneros’ work in this recommended book list. Cisneros visits the Library on April 16, 2009, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of her classic The House on Mango Street. 

Books by Sandra Cisneros
If you like Sandra Cisneros, try one of these novels…

Books by Sandra Cisneros

The House on Mango Street
By Sandra Cisneros
In a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, this is the story of Esperanza Cordero, a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago with all its hard realities of life. She captures her thoughts and emotions in poems and stories in order to rise above the hopelessness and create a space for herself.

Caramelo
By Sandra Cisneros
This dazzling story, told in three parts, spans three generations of a Mexican-American family. On the journey she and her family make each summer, all the way from Chicago down to her grandparents' house in Mexico City, Lala Reyes slowly learns the story of her family.

Loose Woman: Poems
By Sandra Cisneros
A vibrant collection of poetry in which Cisneros celebrates the feminine aspects of love – from the reflective to the erotic – in a voice immediately recognizable to readers of her fiction. Sexy and at times confessional, these poems are elegant and emotional narratives.

Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories
By Sandra Cisneros
These stories, breathtaking in their precision and filled with unending moments of infinite and intimate wisdom, depict the variety of life around the Mexican border while bringing us to an awareness of the commonality of our fears, desires and dreams.

My Wicked, Wicked Ways
By Sandra Cisneros
These poems, comic and sad, radiantly pure and plainspoken, reveal why her stories have been praised for their precision and musicality of language.

Hairs: Pelitos (for kids)
By Sandra Cisneros; illustrated by Terry Ybanez
This jewel-like vignette from The House on Mango Street shows, through simple, intimate portraits, the diversity among us. The beautiful descriptions (in English and Spanish) and free-spirited illustrations perfectly capture the spontaneous, naive perceptions of a child who finds security within her loving family. Ages 4-8.

If you like Sandra Cisneros, try one of these novels…

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
By Julia Alvarez
It's a long way from Santo Domingo to the Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it's the Garcia girls. Four lively Latinas plunge from a pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York, where they embrace all that America has to offer.

Dreaming in Cuban
Cristina García
This vivid and funny first novel about three generations of a Cuban family divided by conflicting loyalties over the Cuban revolution is set in the world of Havana in the 1970s and '80s and in an emigre neighborhood of Brooklyn. It is a story of immense charm about women and politics, women and witchcraft, women and their men.

Daughter of Fortune
By Isabel Allende
Spirited Eliza leaves her home in Chile in search of her lover, who has set out for the California Gold Rush. What she finds instead is adversity and adventure and, through her own resourcefulness, an even more momentous journey to independence and freedom.

Peel My Love Like an Onion
By Ana Castillo
The seductive world of flamenco forms the backdrop for a classic tale of independence found, lost, and reclaimed. Carmen "La Coja" (The Cripple) Santos is hilarious, passionate, triumphant, and mesmerizing. A renowned flamenco dancer in Chicago despite the legacy of childhood polio, Carmen has long enjoyed an affair with Agustin, the married director of her troupe. When she begins a new, passionate liaison with Manolo, Agustin's grandson, an angry rivalry is sparked. Carmen finally makes her way back to happiness in this funny, fiery story that's equal parts soap opera, tragicomedy, and rhapsody.

The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters
By Lorraine López
Having lost their mother, the four Gabaldon sisters consider their elderly Pueblo housekeeper as their surrogate grandmother. As the girls grow into women, they learn the truth about their mysterious caretaker, her legacy, and a family secret.

Book descriptions provided by BookLetters.