The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle: Book Cover

    The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle

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    (Hardcover)

    • Age Range: 9 to 12
    • Pub. Date: April 2008
    • 176pp
    • Sales Rank: 50,013
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      Product Details

      • Pub. Date: April 2008
      • Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
      • Format: Hardcover, 176pp
      • Sales Rank: 50,013
      • Age Range: 9 to 12

      Synopsis

      It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not free. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her.

      Black, white, Cuban, Spanish—Rosa does her best for everyone. Yet who can heal a country so torn apart by war? Acclaimed poet Margarita Engle has created another breathtaking portrait of Cuba.

      School Library Journal

      Gr 9 Up- Often, popular knowledge of Cuba begins and ends with late-20th-century textbook fare: the Cuban Revolution, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Fidel Castro. The Surrender Tree , however, transports readers to another, though no less tumultuous, era. Spanning the years 1850-1899, Engle's poems construct a narrative woven around the nation's Wars for Independence. The poems are told in alternating voices, though predominantly by Rosa, a "freed" slave and natural healer destined to a life on the lam in the island' s wild interior. Other narrators include Teniente Muerte , or Lieutenant Death, the son of a slave hunter turned ruthless soldier; José, Rosa's husband and partner in healing; and Silvia, an escapee from one of Cuba's reconcentration camps. The Surrender Tree is hauntingly beautiful, revealing pieces of Cuba's troubled past through the poetry of hidden moments such as the glimpse of a woman shuttling children through a cave roof for Rosa's care or the snapshot of runaway Chinese slaves catching a crocodile to eat. Though the narrative feels somewhat repetitive in its first third, one comes to realize it is merely symbolic of the unending cycle of war and the necessity for Rosa and other freed slaves to flee domesticity each time a new conflict begins. Aside from its considerable stand-alone merit, this book, when paired with Engle's The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano (Holt, 2006), delivers endless possibilities for discussion about poetry, colonialism, slavery, and American foreign policy.-Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT

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      Biography

      MARGARITA ENGLE is a Cuban American poet, novelist, and journalist whose work has been published in many countries. She lives with her husband in northern California.

      Customer Reviews

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      A great read for all ages.by Lindsey_Miller

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      August 01, 2009: It's not surprising that the Surrender Tree won so many awards, including a Newbery Honor. The language is beautiful, and the story itself is one that is not often told. Especially for an American audience, this text reveals a new type of Cuba that predates the Communist revolution that sparked an arms race during the Kennedy presidency. This is a Cuba much like the early America or Jamaica-a country of people who want to have their own independence, who want to live freely as one people, no slavery, all equals. It's interesting to see the story from so many perspectives, and I think that Engle adroitly switches through the first person narratives with ease. Often writers will struggle to create variance in the voices and speech patterns of their characters, but each of the four sounds different from each other, not only in style and rhythm, but also in their character-hopes, dreams, loves, actions, driving forces. I read it twice, and I would recommend it to all readers.

      -Lindsey Miller, www.lindseyslibrary.com