Foreign Language Study - Spanish, Fiction - Island Peoples, Places & Cultures, Fiction - General & Miscellaneous, Fiction - U. S. People, Places & Cultures, Fiction - Family Life

Hairs

Name: Hairs
Author: Sandra Cisneros, Terry Ybanez
ISBN: 9780679861713

by Sandra Cisneros, Terry Ybanez

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Overview

This jewel-like vignette from Sandra Cisneros's best-selling The House on Mango Street shows, through simple, intimate portraits, the diversity among us.

A Dragonfly Book in English and Spanish.

A Parenting Magazine Best Children's Book of the Year

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Un excelente constructor de vocabulario, con nombres de objetos en Ingl&#233s y en Espa&#241ol, acompa&#241ados por ilustraciones, agrupados por t&#243picos como colores, juguetes, animales y herramientas.

A girl describes how each person in the family has hair that looks and acts different, Papa's like a broom, Kiki's like fur, and Mama's with the sweet smell of bread before it's baked

Synopsis

This jewel-like vignette from Sandra Cisneros's best-selling The House on Mango Street shows, through simple, intimate portraits, the diversity among us.
A "Dragonfly Book in English and Spanish.
A "Parenting Magazine Best Children's Book of the Year
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Un excelente constructor de vocabulario, con nombres de objetos en Inglés y en Español, acompañados por ilustraciones, agrupados por tópicos como colores, juguetes, animales y herramientas.

"From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author, Sandra Cisneros, Terry Ybanez

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954. Internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction, she has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Cisneros is the author of the novels The House on Mango Street and Caramelo, a collection of short stories Woman Hollering Creek, a book of poetry Loose Woman, and a children's book Hairs/Pelitos. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Biography

Sandra Cisneros' first novel, The House on Mango Street, brought an entirely new voice to American literature, describing the experience of narrator Esperanza Cordero, a Mexican American girl living a hardscrabble existence in Chicago. As Bebe Moore Campbell put it, in the New York Times Book Review: "She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one."

The book bore the author's powerful descriptive talents: Comparing her house on Mango Street with the "real house" her parents had promised her, Esperanza notes, "The house on Mango street is not the way they told it at all. It's small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath."

Cisneros, who grew up in Chicago as the only daughter in a family of seven children, attended college on scholarship and was an ethnic anomaly as a graduate student at University of Iowa's renowned Writers' Workshop. There is a lyric quality to Cisneros' work that makes sense, given her alternate life as a poet who has published several volumes of poetry (two, 1980's Bad Boys and 1985's The Rodrigo Poems, are no longer in print).

As a poet, Cisneros has a staccato, highly evocative style. From "A Few Items to Consider," for example: "First there is the scent of barley/to remember. Barley and rain./The smooth terrain to recollect and savor./Unforgiving whiteness of the room./Ambiguity of linen. Purity./Mute and still as photographs on the moon." Cisneros suffuses her poetry and fiction with healthy dose of Spanish and a feminine sensibility, female narrators who remember everything and for whom no detail or sensation is too small. Paragraphs are often punctuated by lists and five-word snapshots. As Cisneros herself has said, she is a miniaturist.

Her poetry and a 1991 collection of stories, Woman Hollering Creek, would have to tide fans over until the long-awaited release of her second novel, 2002's Caramelo. Like her first novel, the story is narrated by a Mexican-American girl; but the scope is a broader one, covering generations of a family as viewed through a cherished caramelo rebozo, or striped traditional shawl, which has been passed down through generations to the book's heroine.

Caramelo has a comical and occasionally unconventional spirit to it, as when one of the characters in the story breaks in to complain about how she is being portrayed. The novel began as an exploration of her own family, and the connection to Cisneros' own life is evident. Here as in other work, Cisneros fills in the gaps between Mexico and the U.S., personal myth and reality.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

``Everybody in our family has different hair''/ ``Todos en nuestra familia tenemos pelo diferente,'' begins this rhythmic, bilingual picture book taken from acclaimed novelist/short-story writer Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Ybez expands upon the diversity theme by rendering the family members in a variety of unusual skin tones as well as with distinctive hairstyles. Purple-faced Papa has hair ``like a broom,/ all up in the air,'' while Nettie's ``slippery'' orange hair contrasts vividly with her blue skin. The narrator waxes lyrical on the subject of Mama's hair: ``sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, [it] is the warm smell of bread before you bake it.'' Each spread is framed by bright borders ornamented with everyday objects-shoes and bikes; steaming cups of coffee; dice, jacks and jumpropes. Inside, the characters seem to float across swirling blocks of color. A spirited and buoyant celebration of individuality and of the bonds within families. Ages 4-8. (Oct.)

Children's Literature - Children's Literature

I was drawn to this simple story because of its tenderness and reflection of family love. A young girl describes what her family members' hair is like, and in so doing describes a bit about each person. She expands her description of the family by telling us her sensory experiences; how her father's hair looked, what her mother's hair smelled like, and what her sister's hair felt like. She has a special place in her heart and memory for her mother whose hair smells so good; nuzzling into it makes her feel safe. The English text is at the top of the page and the Spanish at the bottom, allowing the story to flow. It is well translated with Mexican colloquial flair. The illustrations are friendly, well done and enhance the mood of the story.

Children's Literature - Deborah Zink Roffino

In any language, in any culture, the dreams and comforts of children across the earth are all the same. In this simple story, a youngster describes how every member of her family has hair of different texture. Her brief observations, in bi-lingual text, frame the fiery paintings. The differences within the family testify to the individuality of each member and the love that makes them a unit.

Hazel Rochman

Great for reading aloud, this vignette from Cisneros' "House on Mango Street" (1984) is told in the voice of a young Latina. The words are simple, intimate, and poetic and appear in English at the top of each page, in Spanish at the bottom. (Unfortunately the Spanish translation is occasionally poor, although for the most part, it maintains the lyrical childlike quality of the English text.) The brilliantly colored art perfectly expresses the child's world, both domestic and magical, with a realism rooted in the feelings and physical particulars of family life. The child talks about the hair--and personality--of each person in her home. Papa's hair is like a stiff broom "all up in the air." Her own hair is "lazy. It never obeys barrettes or braids." But best of all is Mama's hair "that smells like bread" when she's holding you and you feel safe. The bold, energetic paintings and their contrasting borders mix objects from home and neighborhood that reflect the diversity within the family and within each personality. Children will recognize the physicalness of the images, especially the cozy sense of home when there's a storm outside.