The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba

by Margarita Engle

Overview

In this quietly powerful novel in verse, which is young adult historical fiction based on a true story, award-winning poet Margarita Engle paints a portrait of early women’s rights pioneer Fredrika Bremer and the journey to Cuba that transformed her life.

When Fredrika Bremer asked the Swedish Consulate to find her a quiet home in the Cuban countryside, she expected a rustic thatched hut, not this luxurious mansion in Matanzas, where Elena, the daughter of the house, can barely step foot outside.

The freedom to roam is something that women and girls in Cuba do not have. Yet when Fredrika sets off to learn about the people of this magical island, she is accompanied by Cecilia, a young slave who longs for her lost home in Africa. Soon Elena sneaks out of the house to join them. As the three women explore the lush countryside, they form a bond that breaks the barriers of language and culture.

The Firefly Letters is...

A Pura Belpré Honor Book

An American Library Association Notable Children's Book

A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250110961
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.45(d)
Lexile:	NC1230L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, memoirs, and picture books, including The Surrender Tree, All the Way to Havana, Bravo!, Drum Dream Girl, and Dancing Hands. Awards include a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré Medals, Golden Kite Award, Walter Honor, Jane Addams Award, PEN U.S.A., and NSK Neustadt Prize, among others. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Recent young adult verse novels include Wings in the Wild and Wild Dreamers. Recent picture books include Water Day and The Sculptors of Light.

Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California.

Read an Excerpt

Matanzas, Cuba

CECILIAI

I remember a wide river

and gray parrots with patches of red feathers

flashing across the African sky

like traveling stars

or Cuban fireflies.

In the silence of night

I still hear my mother wailing,

and I see my father’s eyes

refusing to meet mine.

I was eight, plenty old enough

to understand that my father was haggling

with a wandering slave trader,

agreeing to exchange me

for a stolen cow.

Spanish sea captains and Arab merchants

are not the only men

who think of girls

as livestock.

Excerpted from The Firefly Letters by .

Copyright © 2010 by Margarita Engle.

Published in 2010 by Henry Holt and Company.

All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher.

Editorial Reviews

A Pura Belpré Honor Book

An American Library Association Notable Children's Book

A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year

“Like the firefly light, Engle's poetry is a gossamer thread of subtle beauty weaving together three memorable characters who together find hope and courage. Another fine volume by a master of the novel in verse.” -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“This slim, elegant volume opens the door to discussions of slavery, women's rights, and the economic disparity between rich and poor.” -Publishers Weekly

“Through this moving combination of historical viewpoints, Engle creates dramatic tension among the characters, especially in the story of Elena, who makes a surprising sacrifice.” -Booklist

“This engaging title documents 50-year-old Swedish suffragette and novelist Fredrika Bremer's three-month travels around Cuba in 1851. . . . The easily digestible, poetic narrative makes this a perfect choice for reluctant readers, students of the women's movement, those interested in Cuba, and teens with biography assignments.” —School Library Journal

“The author has a gift for imbuing seemingly effortless text with powerful emotions. . . .This uncommon story will resonate.” —The Bulletin

“The imagistic, multiple first-person narrative works handily in revealing Bremer, an alert and intelligent woman in rebellion against her background of privilege.” —The Horn Book

From the Publisher

Three women, their lives circumscribed by their societies' expectations, come together in Cuba in 1851. Fredrika Bremer, an advocate for women's rights, escapes her confining upper-class life in Sweden by traveling the world. Cecilia, an enslaved teenager longing for her African home, lives with the knowledge that her father exchanged her for a stolen cow. And 12-year-old Cubana Elena feels trapped in her wealthy existence, she and her mother moving "like shadows / lost in their private world / of silk and lace." The free-verse novel effectively alternates the voices of the three protagonists (with a fourth voice for Beni, Cecilia's husband) and demonstrates how each character affects the others, all learning a measure of freedom in their roaming the island, Fredrika always recording her observations in letters and diaries by the light of Cuban fireflies resting on her fingers. And like the firefly light, Engle's poetry is a gossamer thread of subtle beauty weaving together three memorable characters who together find hope and courage. Another fine volume by a master of the novel in verse. (historical note, author's note) (Historical fiction. 10 & up)

Kirkus Reviews