Surrender Tree

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle

Children, Novel in Verse, Historical Fiction
2008, Newbery Honor 2009

First line: Some people call me a child-witch,
but I’m just a girl who likes to watch
the hands of the women
as they gather wild herbs and flowers to heal the sick

Rosa was a healer and a famous Cuban nurse during their wars for independence. She grew up a slave but was freed at the beginning of the book. She marries Jose, and they hide in the forests and built make-shift hospitals. She did not discriminate in those she healed and helped, even healing Lieutenant Death, whose job it was to hunt her down and turn her over to Spain. Their thoughts and feelings about the struggle for freedom are written in poems. Eventually a young escaped girl, Sylvia, makes her way into their care and learns the ways of a healer. The wars finally come to an end but Cuba still does not have the freedom it longs for, instead they are under the rule of the United States.

I am not usually a fan of poetry, but historical novels-in-verse are really growing on me. I appreciated their struggles more because it was poetry instead of prose. Their stories were harrowing and beautiful, their kindness undiminished in all the turbulence. The fact that it was the story of real people is cool but it made the betrayal of the Americans all the more harsh. I am disappointed in the role America played in Cuba’s history.

Favorite Quotes:

"Can it be true that freedom only exists
when it is a treasure,
shared by all?"

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­
"Each choice leads to another.
I am a nurse.
I must heal the wounded.
How well the Lion knows me! Didn’t he say
that curing the enemies
is not my own skill, but a mercy from God?
Each choice leads to another.
I am a nurse.
I must heal."


"Are some deaths
smaller than others,
leaving mothers who weep a little less?
But all I see is death, always the same,
always enormous, never little."


"Young people drift on airy daydreams.
Old folks help hold them in place."


"Peace is not the paradise
I imagined, but it is a chance
to dream…"