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April/May Book Read 2017: The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle
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Ronyell, Your Humble Creator!
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Apr 23, 2017 03:16PM
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by Margarita Engle. Please feel free to talk about what you loved or hated about this book!
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An evocative, emotional, but also often brave and optimistic verse-novel introduction to Cuban history and especially Cuba's rather violent and devastating struggle for independence, for freedom and sovereignty from Spain, Margarita Engle's The Surrender Tree (which won a Newbery Honour designation in 2009) not only features a lyrically beautiful text, the fact that the author shows the musings, the thoughts and actions of different players in the struggle for independence juxtaposed gives (or rather strives to give) a more balanced, less potentially prejudiced and partisan account. And while most readers' hearts will and also naturally beat for and be with individuals like Rosa, José and Silvia, the escaping slaves, the peasants who are being displaced, also reading the musings of some of the main antagonists, of the aptly named Lieutenant Death and Spanish officials does give a more uniform and equal presentation, with much important historical background information (as one needs to be aware of and appreciate both sides of a given conflict, of a given historical period in order to understand and comprehend). The added bonus of an Author's Note personalises the featured, often tragic but always interesting and essential information presented with and by Engle's verses (as her great-grandparents were amongst the Cuban peasants ordered to leave their villages and lands and be forcefully relocated to some of the so-called reconcentration camps). Combined with an extensive historical note, a timeline, and appreciatively, also a list of references for further reading and research, I highly recommend The Surrender Tree to anyone, both young and old, who is interested in the history of Cuba and enjoys verse novels (although with the caveat that while The Surrender Tree is considered and marketed as children's literature, I would not necessarily consider it suitable and even all that easily understandable for readers below the age of at least ten or eleven; there is no upper limit, as The Surrender Tree is basically also a book that I would strongly recommend and suggest to interested adults).Now while The Surrender Tree as an entity, as a presented story is definitely worth a glowing five star rating for me, the truth and fact that I did originally purchase this book not only to learn about the struggle for Cuban independence (and because I generally much enjoy Margarita Engle's verse novels) but also (and even primarily) to be able to practice my rather rusty Spanish (both the Spanish and the English versions are featured in their entirety in my, in this here edition of The Surrender Tree), that the poems of The Surrender Tree are NOT featured in a dual-language, in a parallel text format is really and truly a bit of a major and annoying disappointment for me (as I keep having to flip back and forth if or rather when I try to read the English in conjunction with and to the Spanish text, and it would be so much more user-friendly and less frustrating to have the English and the Spanish versions appear side by side and not one after the other). And while this annoyance does in NO WAY make me not appreciate and not massively adore and even love The Surrender Tree as a verse novel, as a wonderful introduction to Cuba and Cuban history, the way the Spanish and English sections have been set up, have been featured is still frustrating enough for me to personally now only consider a high three star final rating (five stars for the contents, for the poems themselves, for the supplemental details, but only a grudging two star rating for how the Spanish and English components have been set-up, for the fact that The Surrender Tree is not what I had wanted and expected, is not really a dual-language format by any stretch of either my imagination or my needs).
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Wonderful review Manybooks! Now I really want to read this book! I'll have to pick up a copy of this book!
Ronyell wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "An evocative, emotional, but also often brave and optimistic verse-novel introduction to Cuban history and especially Cuba's rather violent and devastating struggle for independen..."It is really a great book, even with my annoyance that the Spanish part was not parallel to the English one (and you can still call me Gundula).
Mod
Oh, thanks Gundula!
I can picture this as a bare-stage reading with a backdrop of photos and paintings, and I do love bare stage theater. But I had trouble with it as a poem, or as a story. It reads like the captions from the illustrations and photos in a textbook, so as a journey into Cuban history (a topic I know nothing about) it was interesting. But in my opinion, as literature, it didn't rise to the challenge. I didn't connect with any of the characters, and the most interesting component of tension (will Lt Death catch up with Rosa again?) just fizzled out. I was also disappointed that there wasn't a character who was a slave running away again and again and again. I would love to have followed a character with the pain and the guts not to give up or give in.
I do agree with Manybooks that the authors notes at the end were fascinating!
