Margarita Engle

Cuba has fought three wars for independence, and still she is not free. This history in verse creates a lyrical portrait of Cuba.

Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

The Surrender Tree

Joycelyn Ghansah

Fighting your whole life just to be overtaken during the end of the war is just...."lowering the Spanish flag and raising the American flag while our Cuban flag is still illegal." The war is over and they're free to dance, to smile but they still don't have peace. Even without peace the people continue to fight and stay resilient.

Rosa and Josea were amazing healers and may their family and legacy live on.

Sidenote:I wasn't aware of the concentration camps for rural people(burn the farmland), runaways and more. Half of the island was there. Colonization is just disgusting. It's horrible. To exterminate people? I don't even know what else to say. Anyway, peace and solidarity to the people of Cuba.

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. The Surrender Tree is a 2009 Newbery Honor Book, the winner of the 2009 Pura Belpre Medal for Narrative and the 2009 Bank Street - Claudia Lewis Award, and a 2009 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

The Surrender Tree Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

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