The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

★★★★★

This book is frequently described as "a series of vignettes", but reading it in 2021, it strikes me how similar the format is to modern blogs. Combined with the lack of quotation marks (which is explained in the Introduction of my edition), the short chapters felt like diary entries to me.

I don't read a lot of poetry, but this book felt like poetry posing as prose. The narrator, Esperanza, writes about her family and her neighborhood, weaving together a tapestry of life with a backdrop of poverty and immigrant experiences. While certainly readable for middle schoolers, The House on Mango Street may be better suited for older, teenaged readers; the writing is deeply emotional and touches upon topics of domestic violence and sexual assault and themes of feminism and self-determination. I followed Esperanza's transition from childhood to adolescence with a sense of both sorrow and hope.

Published in 1984, this book has a bit of outdated language (e.g., "Eskimo", "Oriental") that was widely acceptable in the 1980s but which would be considered inappropriate today. I don't hold these references against the book, in fact, I think it makes this book a good example of how society and sensibilities evolve. Having grown up in the 1980s, I even felt a bit of nostalgia at the mention of photo negatives, and I wonder if some young readers today might not know what they are?

The edition I read included a wonderful Introduction written by the author in 2008 that described the context of who Sandra Cisneros was as a person when she wrote the book, and how the stories and characters came to be. 

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

★★★★

I picked up this book because I am already a fan of Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds. I was probably biased to like it even before I read it.

It's clear that this book was written for middle and high schoolers. The tone was casual and conversational, and the text at times flowed better if I imagined Jason Reynolds was speaking the words in front of me. The fact that I think of this book as using "hip lingo" just shows how I am old and not the target audience. 

Though the back cover loudly proclaims, "This is NOT a history book," actually, it is, just not in the traditional sense. The history presented in this book makes clear how anti-Black racism has always been and continues to be used to oppress and divide those without power so that those with power can stay in power or achieve even more political or financial gain. Much of the analysis is presented in terms of segregationism, assimilationism, and antiracism, big ideas that Reynolds makes easily accessible. This book provides the foundation one needs to better understand how racism is not just a problem with people individually, but a systemic problem rooted in policies, and how those policies have come about.

This book calls itself a "remix" of Ibram X. Kendi's book Stamped from the Beginning, which I am now inspired to read. There is so much information, mostly presented in broad strokes, that I am interested in reading the original book, which I assume fleshes out more of the details.  

This book would be a valuable read for any student because it lays bare how the typical history presented in most classrooms is whitewashed, omitting many harsh truths. I wondered, however, if some ideas weren't getting explained well enough for the intended audience of young readers. For example, the book mentioned affirmative action (p. 223, 230), but didn't define it. The reader is assumed to understand that affirmative action should be supported, but for those who haven't thought much about it, or who might not even know what it is, I think some further commentary would have helped to shed light on why affirmative action is considered controversial. 

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

★★★★

I generally do not read much sci-fi, so I'm not exactly the target audience for this collection of short stories. I picked up this book because my husband, who is a big fan of sci-fi, enjoyed it, and I liked the idea of supporting an Asian American author by reading his work. (It may or may not be worth noting that none of these stories explicitly include any Asian characters, but I'm still putting it on my figurative "Asian" shelf for author representation.)

I very much appreciated the "Story Notes" included at the end of the book, in which the author describes a bit of the motivation behind each story. Reading this section felt like getting bonus "behind the scenes" material.       

Pretty much all of the stories have a thought-provoking premise, so much so that it felt like many of them were written with the express purpose of exploring a particular, profound idea. In "Division of Zero", Chiang asks what would happen if a person's foundation for truth is shattered. In "Seventy-Two Letters", he examines philosophical and moral questions of humanity, as well as the power of language. "Hell is the Absence of God" addresses the common questions of "What happens when bad things happen to good people?" and "Why do good things happen to some people and not others?", but Chiang takes it a step further by bravely writing a story that has "the courage of its convictions", as he explains in the "Story Notes". (p. 280) "Liking What You See: A Documentary" feels like it was an exercise in exploring all sides of an issue, including possible behaviors of involved individuals and organizations, and ending up in a reasonable compromise position.

In many of the stories, I felt a kind of heaviness while reading, maybe even some anxiety, like there was a sense of impending doom. In "Tower of Babylon", it just felt like no good could come from breaching the vault of heaven. In "Understand", the main character's pursuit of superintelligence led him to a dark, isolated existence. "Division of Zero" could very well have used a content warning for suicide. "Story of Your Life" had a grey, depressing aura throughout. (I'm eager to watch Arrival, the film adaptation, to compare with the book.) And while "Hell is the Absence of God" had elements of faith, it was ultimately dispiriting. I was actually quite relieved that the book ended with "Liking What You See: A Documentary", a relatively fun and light-hearted read delivered in a clever, original format. 

As a final note, I will mention that this book sure broadened my vocabulary! It was kind of fun looking up new words practically every few pages, words like "onagers" and "antimacassar".