Tropical Secrets by - Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle

Historical Fiction
193 pages
2009

I'm officially a Margarita Engle fan! I reviewed her first book, The Surrender Tree, loved it. It was a very enjoyable read, flowing in verse and full of history and human emotion. Tropical Secrets is just as good. Like Tree, it's written in verse, and set in Cuba, but at a very different time in history. Secrets takes place from 1939 and 1942. It's about refugees from Europe, mostly Jewish, who sailed first to the US, hoping to find sanctuary. Their ship is turned away from New York and ends up in Cuba. Throughout the book, we hear 4 different voices; Daniel, a Jewish boy from Germany, put on the ship by his parents in order to save him from the Nazi's; Paloma, a Cuban girl who witnesses the plight of the Jews in Cuba with a soft heart; David, an old Jew from Russia who has been living in Cuba since he was young; and El Gordo, Paloma's extortionist father who takes every opportunity to make money from the suffering refugees. I like the various perspectives of the characters. You can feel their fear, courage, cowardice, and hope.
Tropical Secrets is a fast read, very well written, and you wont be able to NOT learn something.

Comments

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Search This Blog