In honor of the fifth anniversary of her popular Today show book club, Jenna Bush Hager selected two titles for her fans to read in March.
Hager’s latest picks for the club are Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street and Cristina Henríquez’s The Great Divide.
The House on Mango Street, now widely considered a classic, was originally published by Arte Público Press in 1984. It follows a year in the life of Esperanza, a 12-year-old girl living in Chicago.
Henríquez’s novel, scheduled for publication Tuesday by Ecco, follows multiple characters whose lives are affected by the construction of the Panama Canal. A critic for Kiruks wrote of the book, “Despite panoramic ambitions, the novel never quite catches fire.”
Hager announced her selections on the Today show, which featured a segment of Hager and the two authors in conversation at the café/bookstore Bibliotheque in New York. Henríquez talked about receiving a grant from Cisneros.
“It was this huge moment of somebody saying to me, ‘You can do this.’ And not only somebody saying [it] to me, but Sandra Cisneros saying it to me.”
Henríquez recalled advice she received from Cisneros early in her literary career.
“She said, ‘You’re going to go out there, and people are going to tell you these are Latina stories, and you tell them, ‘No, these are American stories.’ And that is something I have always carried with me,” Henríquez said.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
