Engle, Margarita. The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist.

Engle, Margarita.  The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist.  Houghton Mifflin/ Harcourt Brace   2013  182p  ISBN 978-0-547-80743-0  ms/hs  Hardback  E-BN  Biography in verse

In 1827 women were supposed to be quiet, demure, and defer to men.  Women married at 14 and their lives became their husband’s lives.  Tula was born into this world, but Tula is different and she wants to learn how to read and write and has a strong sense of right and wrong, especially concerning the slaves.    Mama is dreaming of all the things Tula should be thinking of at 13, things like jewels and beautiful gowns and going to elegant balls.  Besides, no man wants a girl who can read and write.  A lady should be elegant and quiet and let the men worry about reading and writing and discussing politics.  Mama is worried that Tula will ruin their chances of living a life of luxury.  After all, if Tula does not make an advantageous marriage, she and her son Manuel will be ruined.

While Tula’s mother dreams of riches to come, Tula dreams of reading, writing, and learning about the world around her.  And then she discovers the poems of Jose Maria Heredia, a rebel poet and abolitionist who believed that all men were created egual.  As Tula finds her wings, she also realizes that her wings already have been clipped, but her heart and soul beg for justice for the slaves whom she sees suffering so that she and her kind can live in luxury.  This is a story of the suffering that slaves went through in Cuba, as well as a story about society’s injustice toward women, told in poems.  

The author, Margarita Engle, weaves a tale of the 1800s using poetry to tell us a story of one woman’s belief that women should have the freedom to learn to read and write and that slavery should be abolished.  Her poetry brings Tula to life.  The book includes a biographical section on Tula (Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda y Arteaga) and some of her poetry.

Some other great books by this author are: The Wild Book, Hurricane Dancers, The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom (winner of the Pura Belpre Award and the Newbery Honor Award in 2009), and Firefly Letters: A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba.
http://www.margaritaengle.com/

Summary: In 1827 women were supposed to be quiet, demure, and defer to men.  Women married at 14 and their lives became their husband’s lives.  Tula was born into this world, but Tula is different.  This is a biography told in poetry about Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, an abolitionist poet in 19^th-century Cuba.     

Slavery-Cuba, Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda           --Magna Diaz