Manzano, Sonia.  Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx.  New York: Scholastic Press, 2015.  978-0-545-62184-7.  $18.00. 262p. Gr. 9 and up.

Most of us grew up watching Sesame Street and know all of its familiar loveable characters like members of our own families, but we may not have thought about how they got to that famed street.  Becoming Maria shares Sonia Manzano’s journey from the South Bronx to Sesame Street sharing her earliest memories spanning from discovering her love of the theater as a young child to getting accepted at Carnegie Mellon University for acting.  The emotional abuse that she endured from her alcoholic father, and the physical and sexual abuse from strangers will tug on readers’ heartstrings.  Her family’s desire to create a better life for themselves was a struggle and often didn’t go as planned.  They moved a lot from shabby apartment to shabby apartment often taking in family members as they immigrated from Puerto Rico.  Becoming Maria is a true depiction of the American Dream and will give hope to all students with the desire to reach for the stars.  Thoughts: This is a great memoir of a familiar tv star.  It could be used in the tv classroom, theater arts program, or even in a history or language arts classroom.  The writing hooks readers in with short chapters that lead the reader through the seventies and eighties.  

Memoir     Laura Ward, Fox Chapel Area High School