The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

A slim, beautiful novel about growing up Latina in Chicago that has been taught in classrooms for decades and challenged in those same classrooms for almost as long. 

The House on Mango Street tells the extraordinary story of Esperanza Cordero. Told through a series of vignettes -- sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyful -- this is the tale of a Latin girl who grows up in a Chicago neighborhood, discovering for herself what and who she will become. There are only a few books in this era that have touched so many readers.