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Grace Akkad
Chapter summaries
The house on mango street: A girl who is part of a big family moves a lot from places to places. Now she lives in a house on Mango Street were everyone has to share a bedroom and there is only one washroom. All her family dreams that one day they will live in a decent house.
Hairs: Everyone in her family has different type of hair, her dad´s it´s like a broom, her brothers’ hair is straight and slippery, and hers is lazy. But her mom´s hair is the most beauIful one, because of the curls and the smell.
mom
Boys and girls: Boys and girls have different ideas and ways of having fun. Her brothers are best friends inside and outside the house and they only talk to her while she is in the house. She can´t be friends with Nenny, her liJle sister because she is much younger than her.
My name: Her name is hope, Esperanza. She does not like it because she says it is a sad name full of waiIng and sad songs. Her great-‐grand mother was named like her also, and she was a strong woman, but their circumstances did not let her flow.
Cathy queen of cats: Cathy is Esperanza´s neighbor. Cathy says that she is great grand cousin of a queen in France. She has a lot of cats, like a cat heaven. She will be Esperanza´s friend only unIl next Tuesday.
Our good day: Since Esperanza wants to have friends, and she knows that Cathy will only be unIl Tuesday, she wants to pay two girls five dollars for them to be her friend and have a third of a bicycle with them. She becomes friends with them, Lucy and Rachel. They ride the bike together.
Laughter: Nenny and Esperanza don’t look like sisters. Not like Rachel and Lucy that you can tell in which family they belong. But Nenny and Esperanza have other things in common like their laughter and some other thoughts.
Gil´s furniture bought and sold: There is a store of old furniture down the block were all the stuff are piled together because there are many things and very old. The owner is a black man who does not talk much. Nenny wanted to buy an old box, but it wasn´t for sale.
Meme OrIz: Meme OrIz is the boy who moved into the house in which Cathy lived. His real name is Juan but everybody calls him Meme. When his dog started barking to a cat under a tree, they chose that tree to make the Tarzan contest and Meme won but broke both his arms.
Louie, his cousin and his other cousin. Meme´s mother rented the basement to a Puerto Rican family. Louie is the oldest of liJle girls. He has a cousin named Marin who uses a lot of makeup and sings all the Ime. The other cousin is older and has an amazing yellow Cadillac with white seats, they take a ride with him but they had to get off the car because the cops took him.
Marin: Marin has a boyfriend in Puerto Rico. She is older than Esperanza and tells her stuff she did not know, stuff she wanted to know. She looks cool, and she is very preJy but she is waiIng for someone to change her life.
Those who don´t: Esperanza lives in a neighborhood where everyone is the same. Other kids are afraid when they go to her neighborhood as well as she is scared and afraid when she goes to another one.
There was an old woman she had so many children she didn´t know what to do: Rosa Vargas is a lady who has many kids. She is always Ired of babying and buJoning so she can´t do it anymore. She just gave up. Her kids are disrespecYul to everyone and they are mischievous in every way.
Alicia who sees mice: Alicia is a girl who goes to university and her mom died. She always sees mice and her father tells her to close her eyes or she is just imagining them. She is very afraid of four-‐legged fur and fathers.
Darius and the clouds: Darius is a foolish kid who does not like school and does not say much. But one day he said something important. He pointed at the clouds and said that the puffy one was god. He was sure about it.
And some more: Esperanza, Luc, Rachel and Nenny are in the backyard and are talking about the clouds. Esperanza says that clouds have names and they start talking about it . Suddenly Lucy insults Esperanza´s mom and they got in a fight.
The family of liJle feet: There was a family who had very small feet. All of them. Suddenly the mother gave Esperanza, Rachel and Lucy, three pairs of shoes and they are very excited because the shoes are beauIful. They walk in the street with those shoes feeling beauIful.
A rice sandwich: Esperanza wants to eat in the canteen like some other students, so she asks her mom to make her a sandwich and a leJer in order to eat there. When she gets to school, the Superior Sister yells at her and she cries while she eats her sandwich.
Chanclas: Esperanza goes to a bapIsm party with a new dress but with shoes that are small on her so her feet hurt. Her uncle Nacho starts dancing with her and everybody clapped because it was a great dance. She forgot about the shoes
Hips: Esperanza, Rachel , Lucy and Nenny are jumping the rope in the backyard and suddenly they started talking and discussing about hips. They start moving, pracIcing for one day they will have hips.
The first job: Esperanza wants to get a job so her aunt finds her one in the Peter Pan Photo finishers. She has to put the negaIves in the envelope as well as the photos. He made a new friend He was old and was his birthday; he gave Esperanza a kiss in the lips.
Papa ho wakes up Ired in the dark: Esperanza´s grandfather died. Her father goes into her room, wakes her up and tells her the bad news. He started crying and Esperanza did not know what to do , but she had to tell the others. She hold her father in her arms while he cried.
Born Bad: Esperanza´s aunt Lupe is very sick, she was a swimmer and nobody knows ho and why she felt sick. She became blind and was dying. One day the girls were playing to imitate people they all know, and s the game went on they started o imitate aunt Lupe. They felt so bad because she died.
Elenita cards, palm, water: Elenita is a witch woman, he is yelling to her kids because they are not behaving well. Esperanza goes to her to know her fortune. Past, present, future. But Esperanza goes out disappointed because Elenita tells her she saw a home in a heart, but Esperanza doesn´t get it.
Geraldo no last name: Geraldo is a boy nobody new , he did not speak English. Marin knew him because she goes to a lot of dances. They danced together. Marin was the last person who saw him alive because Geraldo had an accident. No one knew anything about him.
Edna´s Ruthie: Edna is the woman who owns the building next door. She has a daughter named Ruthie, who is preJy and a very good whistler. Ruthie became friends with Esperanza and she does not achieve her goals like going to the denIst. She laughs a lot.
The Earl of Tennessee: Earl is a man from Tennessee that lives in Edna´s basement. He works at nights. He is a jukebox repairman. He also has two liJle black dogs who follow him everywhere. He has a wife who does not stay long with him.
Sire There was a punk boy who always looked at Esperanza in a very strange way. She was afraid but didn´t let him know she was. He had a preJy girlfriend called Lois and they hold hands. Esperanza wants a boyfriend.
Four skinny trees: There are four skinny trees in the streets with which Esperanza feels very familiar. She imagines them with a human life and how they survive among the other trees that are not like them.
No speak English: Mamacita is the big mama of the man across the street. He brought her to Mango Street because she was alone with a baby boy. She doesn´t know how to speak English and that is why she never comes down. Maybe she can´t come down because she is very fat.
Rafaela who drinks coconut and papaya juice on Tuesdays: Rafaela is a very beauIful woman whose husband gets home late on Tuesdays because she plays dominoes. She is locked indoors. When she is looking at the window she asks the kids to buy her some coconut and papaya juice.
Sally. Sally is a girl in school who paints her eyes like Cleopatra. The boys think she is very beauIful because she has long black hair that when she laughs she throws it back. Everyone wants to be like her but since her religion is very strict she o\en is sad.
Minerva writes poems: Minerva is a girl who is a liJle bit older than Esperanza but she already has two kids and a husband who le\ her alone. She writes poems in liJle pieces of paper and she is always sad. She is sad because her husband le\ her alone.
Bums in the a]c: SomeImes Esperanza goes to a house in the hill where her father works. She realized she is Ired of looking at things she can´t have and she stops listening. One day she will have her own house in hat hill.
BeauIful and cruel: Esperanza is not very preJy and she has bad manners, like men. Always the one with red lips is the one who is beauIful and cruel. She drives men crazy and laughs them away because she has the power to.
Smart cookie: Esperanza´s mother regrets how her life turned out because she had to quit school in order to have clothes. Clearly she was poor. But she is telling Esperanza how she was smart and could´ve been something else.
What sally said: Sally was telling Esperanza how her father beats her. She used to say that she fell off the stairs. One day she was going to stay with Esperanza and her father came by. Later he forgot Sally was her daughter and hit her again.
The monkey garden: The monkey garden is a place where a monkey used to live and where Esperanza loves to go. She went there with Sally and some boys were mocking them, they stole Sally´s keys and would only give them back if she kisses them. Esperanza got very mad but she blacked out and she never felt confortable there again.
Red Clowns: Esperanza was confused and very sad because Sally didn´t help her when the boy was taking her, she was not a good friend. Esperanza felt betrayed by movies, magazines and Specially Sally. The boy raped Esperanza in the garden.
Linoleum roses: Sally finally got married. She had to go to another state where it is legal to get married before eight grade. She says she is happy but Esperanza thinks she did it to escape because now her husband treats her like a prisoner.
The three sisters: Lucy and Rachel´s baby sister just died. Before they burry her, everyone in the neighborhood went to their house to see the baby. There are three aunts in the house who surprisingly guess Esperanza´s wish to go away from Mango Street.
Alicia and I talking on Edna´s steps: Alicia is a good friend because listened to Esperanza´s sadness. Esperanza thinks she doesn´t have a home or a place to go even though she has a house on Mango Street. She wants to go away and live somewhere else.
A house of my own: Esperanza wants a house of her own, where only her things are there and there is no one with a sIck. She wants her own house, not her father´s or her aunts, just her own.
Mango says goodbye someImes: Esperanza likes to tell stories. She tells them inside her head, every step she walks. Mango street will someday say goodbye because she is too strong to stay. But she will come back for her loved ones.
I personally didn´t like the book because it does not have a story that has a plot or a problem to be resolved. I felt it boring and useless.