Engle, M. (2008). The surrender
tree: Poems of Cuba's struggle for freedom. New York: Henry Holt and. ISBN
978-0-8050-8674-4
The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom is told in narrative free-verse. We meet Rosa as child in 1850. She is a slave girl who is learning how to
heal with plants and natural things. Her
owner grudgingly loans her to a Spanish officer to travel with them as they
round up runaway slaves and heal any who are injured and sick. Engle then skips about 20 years and begins
with Cuba’s wars from 1868-1899. Rosa
meets a young man, Jose, and gets married, she is freed and they hide in the
jungle taking care of the sick of their country. The son of the Spanish officer knows Rosa is
free and healing people and makes it his mission throughout the story to find
and kill her, but is unsuccessful. At
one point a girl, Silvia, who has lost her entire family joins Rosa wanting to learn
how to heal naturally. Engle tells the
years of fighting Spain and then the U.S. joining Cuba to fight Spain only to
then take over themselves through fiction based on real people.
Engle
does a great job developing her characters, even though she does it through
poetry and not prose. We get to know
Rosa through her descriptions of what she sees and feels. She says people describe her as a
child-witch, but she is just a girl. She
is described as “simple. Her hair in a
kerchief. Her gun, rusty, useless…” and
later Silvia describes Rosa as, “a woman in blue with long, loose black hair
just lime my own.” She describes the
people as some are dark skinned, some are light hair and skinned, but they
speak Spanish. She also describes some
of the slaves as indentured Chinese. Engle also shows us the superstitious side of
the people when she says, “my father chops each body into four pieces, and
locks each piece in a cage, and hangs the four cages on four branches of the
same tree….He says they believe a chopped, caged spirit cannot fly away to a
better place.” Also as some people think Rosa a witch, she sees it as “I am one
of the few free women blessed with healing skills.” and feels her skills come
from God. On the other hand, the
Festival of Three Kings day is presented as well.
The setting is also described with slaves
running away into mangrove swamps with fish, frogs and crocodile’s being hunted
along with guijes, small, wrinkled,
green mermaids with long, red hair and golden combs. We then move into the jungle where Engle
describes the vegetation of guavas, wild yams, mangos, palm hearts, kapok tree,
and waterfalls and caves, where the people would hide. They would encounter bats, hummingbirds “the
size of bees”, bees that don’t sting, and a un
sinsonte, a Cuban mockingbird. Throughout the book the theme of hope and
survival is presented in phrases of “words freely given on this day of hope,”
and “Peace is not the paradise I imagined, but it is a chance to dream.”
Awards:
2009 Newbery Honor
2009 Pura Belpre Medal
2009 Claudia Lewis Award
2009 Jane Adams Children's Book
Reviews:
“A
powerful narrative in free verse . . . haunting.” ―The Horn Book
“Hauntingly
beautiful, revealing pieces of Cuba's troubled past through the poetry of
hidden moments.” ―School Library Journal
Connections:
Mora, P. (2007). Yum! mmmm! qué
rico!: Americas' sproutings. Ill. By Rafael López. New York: Lee & Low Books. ISBN 978-1-58430-271-1
A poetry book about all kinds of food
like blueberries, chile, chocolate, papaya, corn and pecans. The one about Prickly Pear reads:
Red desert wonder.
Cactus fruit becomes
syrup
and dulces. Surprise!
There is then a description about
prickly pear cactus may have come from Mexico and they are eaten raw, cooked
and dried. How the leaves or pads are
prepared by removing the skin and needles and the red fruits are hard to
harvest but are used to make juice, jam, and candy. Each page has a similar layout with a haiku
and then a description giving details about the plant.
Mora
uses interlingual words in her book by mixing mostly English with some
Spanish. Luna for moon, dulces for
sweets, and shares with us pacane
means pecan in French, the Greek word pepon
means pumpkin.
Lopez uses acrylic on
wood panels to depict his illustrations of children around the world. There are pictures of Hispanic, Native
American, Caucasian, Asian, African-American and Indian children. The children are in pictures with families
and also doing activities such as farming, cooking, playing a drum, and of
course eating. He also includes pictures
of animals like a bluebird, komodo dragon, cricket, dog, parrot, and
butterfly. Some settings are in a
desert, jungle, farm, and near a volcano.
The colors are bright and vibrant.
Awards:
2008-2009
Texas Bluebonnet Award (TBA) Master List
2008 ALA Notable Children's Books
2008 Amérias Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature Commended Title
2008 ALA Notable Children's Books
2008 Amérias Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature Commended Title
Reviews:
"This inventive stew of food haiku
celebrates the indigenous foods of the Americas." --Booklist
"Teachers will find this a welcome addition to their social-studies units, but it should also win a broad general audience for its inventive, fun-filled approach to an ever-popular topic: food." --School Library Journal
"Teachers will find this a welcome addition to their social-studies units, but it should also win a broad general audience for its inventive, fun-filled approach to an ever-popular topic: food." --School Library Journal
Activities:
·
Invite students to
create an art piece (watercolor, collage, etc.) incorporating the 14 foods in
the book.
·
Make
ice cream
·
Invite students to
make a list of 14 of their favorite foods and write a haiku about one.
·
Plan a Yum! Party
with your colleagues or class. Guests can choose one or a combination of the 14
foods in the book to use in a dish to share at your event.
Ryan, P. M. (2004). Becoming Naomi
León. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 978-0-439-26997-1
Naomi Soledad Leon Outlaw is a 5th
grade girl who lives with her grandmother, Gram, and brother, Owen, loves
carving soap, making lists and deals with people making fun of her name. She’s never known their dad and their mom has
been gone for seven years. Naomi’s
mother shows back up all of a sudden and things begin to drastically change…not
for the better. Naomi learns that her
mother has struggled with alcoholism, and she wants only Naomi to come live
with her and her boyfriend in Las Vegas (so she can collect money from the government). Naomi’s mother, Terri Lynn (aka Skyla) doesn’t
want her brother, Owen, because he has some health issues. As Skyla tries to force Naomi to come with
her, Gram, Owen and Naomi along with some friends leave for Mexico during a
carving festival, Night of the Radishes, to see if they can find Naomi and Owen’s
dad. Things look bleak, but they get
some leads and see their father.
Naomi’s character is fully developed in
this story as we see her at the beginning as a worrier, “’Things I Am Good At’ which
consisted of …2) Worrying…” and at the end Mr. Marble, the librarian, says, “I
can already tell you are a different girl since you went to Mexico. Before you were a mouse, but now you have the
countenance of a lioness.” We also see
Naomi as a loner who has lunch in the library with the other “leftover kids”
and develop a friendship with a new girl who moves in, Blanca, “’Wow. I missed you,’ she said, hugging me tight.”
Naomi is desecribed as “wild mop and my predisposition to brown-ness (eyes,
hair, and skin). I took after the
Mexican side of the family ...” She is also named after a patron saint of
Oaxaca, “Nuestra Senora de la Soledad.
Our Lady of Solitude…”
Ryan also describes a realistic setting
of Avocado Acres Trailer Rancho in Lemon Tree, California. She describes the Airstream trailer, which
Gram says looks like a miniature whale and name it Baby Beluga, they live in
with the layout and how they eat at a table that folds into a bed. And later as we travel to Oaxaca, Mexico,
Ryan describes the Mexican setting by throwing in some Spanish words along with
translation. She uses: la
basilica (church), el zocalo
(town square), and barrio (neighborhood). We also see a description of the food, “quesadillas,
too, from big flour tortillas folded in half.
Inside, el quesillo melted
over yellow squash blossoms.” Gram also buys Naomi a shirt at the el Mercado. It is described as, “a new white peasant
blouse with puffed sleeves…gathered neckline and blue and yellow embroidery down
the center front.”
One of the religious activities Ryan
describes for us is Los Posadas, which is “how for nine nights before Christmas…walking
through streets, knocking on doors and pretending to look for shelter, just
like Mary and Joseph did in Bethlehem.”
Awards:
2005 Thomas Rivera Children’s Book
Award
2006 Pura Belpre Honor
Review:
“Naomi's search for her dad a search for
identity, and both are exciting…and the quest is heartbreaking. The dense
factual detail about the festival sometimes slows the story, but it's an
effective tool for dramatizing Naomi's discovery of her Mexican roots and the
artist inside herself.” – Booklist
“Naomi’s matter-of-fact
narrative is suffused with her worries and hopes, along with her protective
love for her brother and great-grandmother. Ryan’s sure-handed storytelling and
affection for her characters convey a clear sense of Naomi’s triumph, as she
becomes ‘who I was meant to be.’” - Kirkus
Connections:
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