Family of Little Feet

“The Family of Little Feet” by Sandra Cisnero is a bildungsroman. The main characters Esperanza, Rachel, and Lucy have been given new adult women’s shoes. They try on the shoes “We laugh at Rachel’s one foot with a girl’s grey sock and a lady’s high heel (41)”. This shows that the girls are Transitioning between childhood and adulthood, they are old enough to fit in the shoes but still young enough to wear girls socks. It’s this transition they are realizing. Therefore when they get attention for looking like an adult woman they are taken back. “On the avenue a boy on a homemade bicycle calls out: Ladies lead me to heaven”(41)”. From what the boy is saying the girls realize that the boy is referring to them as grown women and he thinks they are attractive. The attention though is something the girls are not used to and this shows a loss of innocence. More so, when the girls have fully noticed that people see then as women and not little girls anymore the girls feel another trait of Bildunsroman. “We are tired of being beautiful” (42). The girls are feeling nostalgia because they want to be young again and not have the attention they got. The girls fully realize that they are becoming women that people will notice more. So thats why its a coming of age story.