The Lightning Dreamer Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist

Tula is a girl who yearns for words, who falls in love with stories, but in Cuba, girls are not allowed an education. No, Tula is expected to marry well--even though she's filled with guilt at the thought of the slaves Mamá will buy with the money gained by marrying Tula to the highest bidder. Then one day, hidden in a dusty corner of a convent library, Tula discovers the banned books of a rebel poet. The poems speak to the deepest part of her soul, giving her a language with which to write of the injustice around her. In a country that isn't free, the most daring abolitionists are poets who can veil their work with metaphors, and Tula becomes just that. In powerful, haunting verses of her own, Margarita Engle evokes the voice of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, known as Tula, a young woman who was brave enough to speak up for those who could not. --

Listed under JUVENILE NONFICTION · Biography & Autobiography · Literary · Women