The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom / El arbol de la rendicion: Poemas de la lucha de Cuba por su libertad

by Margarita Engle

Overview

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle For Freedom / El árbol de la rendición: poemas de la lucha de cuba por su libertad is a lyrical, Newbery Honor-winning history in poems, and this bilingual edition has the Spanish and English text available in one book.

¿La Guerra Chiquita?
¿Cómo puede haber una guerra chiquita?
¿Acaso algunas muertes son más pequeñas que otras,
dejan madres que lloran un poco menos?

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?

Using the true story of the folk hero Rosa la Bayamesa, acclaimed poet Margarita Engle gives us another gripping, breathtaking account of a tumultuous period in Cuban history.

A 2009 Newbery Honor Book
Winner of the 2009 Pura Belpré Medal for Narrative
Winner of the 2009 Bank Street - Claudia Lewis Award
A 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312608712
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	03/16/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	167,149
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Margarita Engle is the Cuban American author of many books, including the verse novels Your Heart, My Sky: With a Star in My Hand, The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor winner; and Forest World. Her verse memoirs include Soaring Earth and Enchanted Air, which received the Pura Belpré Award, a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor, and was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, among others. Her picture books include Drum Dream Girl Dancing Hands, and The Flying Girl. Follow her on Twitter @margaritapoet and on Instagram @englemargarita

Margarita Engle es la autora cubanoamericana de muchas novelas en verso, entre las que se incluyen Tu corazón, mi cielo; Con una estrella en la mano; El árbol de la rendición, ganadora del premio de honor Newbery; y La selva. También ha escrito dos libros de memorias en verso: La tierra al vuelo y Aire encantado, de los cuáles el último recibió el premio Pura Belpré, la medalla de honor de Walter Dean Myers en la categoría de jóvenes lectores y fue finalista del premio YALSA a la excelencia en no ficción, entre otros. Sus libros ilustrados incluyen Manos que bailan, Un pregón de frutas, y La joven aviadora. Margarita nació en Los Angeles, pero desarrolló un fuerte apego por la patria de su madre durante visitas veraniegas a sus parientes en la isla. Continúa visitando Cuba tan frecuentemente como le es posible, Visítala en MargaritaEngle.com o síguela en Twitter en @margaritapoet y en Instagram en @englemargarita.

Reading Group Guide

1. Why do you think the author chose to tell this story through poetry instead of prose?
2. The book follows Rosa from childhood through adulthood.
How have the wars changed her?
3. Lieutenant Death says that his father corrected him when he called Rosa a witch-girl because if he adds girl, "she'll think she's human, like us." How do you think this statement affected
Lieutenant Death's opinion of Rosa?
4. We never learn Lieutenant Death's real name. All of the other characters who speak have their real name as the character heading. How does this affect your opinion of the character?
5. Rosa heals Lieutenant Death after he falls from a tree. Why does she help him? Why, even after her help, does he still want to kill her?
6. Find a passage in the book that you enjoyed or felt a connection with. Discuss what it was about that passage that made it memorable for you.
7. Who was your favorite character and why?
8. What does the Surrender Tree represent to Rosa?
9. Why does Rosa help anyone, no matter what side they fight for, free of charge?
10. Silvia ends the book saying "Peace is not the paradise I
imagined, but it is a chance to dream." What do you think she means by this? What do you think the rest of her life will be like? 11. Take an experience from your own life and write a few lines of poetry to tell the story.

Editorial Reviews

Engle writes her new book in clear, short lines of stirring free verse. Caught by the compelling narrative voices, many readers will want to find out more.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“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

“Young readers will come away inspired by these portraits of courageous ordinary people.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The poems are short but incredibly evocative.” —Voice of Youth Advocates

From the Publisher

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

School Library Journal

Tales of political dissent can prove, at times, to be challenging reads for youngsters, but this fictionalized version of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain may act as an entry to the form. The poems offer rich character portraits through concise, heightened language, and their order within the cycle provides suspense. Four characters tell the bulk of the story: Rosa, a child who grows up to be a nurse who heals the wounded, sick and starving with herbal medicine; her husband, Jose, who helps her move makeshift hospitals from cave to cave; Silvia, an orphaned girl who escapes a slave camp so that she may learn from Rosa; and Lieutenant Death, a hardened boy who grows up wanting only to kill Rosa and all others like her. Stretching from 1850 to 1899, these poems convey the fierce desire of the Cuban people to be free. Young readers will come away inspired by these portraits of courageous ordinary people. (author's note, historical note, chronology, references) (Fiction/poetry. 12+)

Kirkus Reviews