Christina's Book Reviews: Verse Novels

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Engle, Margarite. 2008. THE SURRENDER TREE: POEMS OF CUBA’S STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN-13 9780805086744

PLOT SUMMARY
The poetry book is a collection of poems that tell the story of Cuban slaves and their fight for freedom. The poems revel how one former slave Rosa, becomes a symbol of hope and healing through the long wars.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This book of poetry is a verse novel that follows several events that occurred during a series of wars that occurred in Cuba concerning plantation owners freeing their slaves. It is told as a narrative from several points of view in which events are told. The author writes from several different perspectives: the healer, the slave, the slave hunter, the general and, the child. I think that Engle wanted to provide the reader with multiple points of view because it encourages the reader to think about how they would feel in each role. Most of the characters were born into their positions. I find it interesting that the character Lieutenant Death, is never given a true name. During one poem at the beginning of the novel I almost felt sorry for him because it seems that he does not like his position as a slave hunter “I am scared of …..the ears of captives/still warm”. In this poem is his describing all of the things that he is scared of and they all involve instruments of his position.

This book would be better for older students in middle school or high school to read and study. I do not think that younger students would understand the events and emotions that are conveyed in the novel. War is a serious topic and younger students do not have the maturity level to appreciate “The Surrender Tree”.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
“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.” – The School Library

“The switching perspectives personalize the dramatic political history, including the establishment of the world’s first “reconcentration camps” to hold prisoners, as well as the role of slave owners who freed their slaves and joined the resistance against Spain. Many readers will be caught by the compelling narrative voices and want to pursue the historical accounts in Engle’s bibliography.” - Booklist

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