The Surrendor Tree

Engle, M.  (2008).  The surrender tree.  New York, NY:  Holt. Rosa is a young slave in Cuba.  She has the gift of healing people with plants and herbs.  Her job is to heal runaway slaves so that the slave hunter can take them back for a price.  She becomes very upset when her owner lends her to the slave hunter so that she can help heal the runaways.  She is free when the Cuban slave owners decide to free all their slaves in protest against Spain.  It does not last long, and she returns to healing those needing the help in hiding. As she is grows, so does her reputation.  Many who are sick or wounded seek Rosa so that she can put them back together.  Rosa falls in love with an escaped slave, Jose, and together they nurse people back to health.   At the end of the war, Rosa feels that she can finally see hope and freedom for the orphans that she helped and who helped her throughout the war. I feel that the best part of this book is how vividly you can see Rosa running in through the jungles to the caves. This book can compare to Persepolis by Marjane Sarapi.  Just like in Iran, Cuba has leaders that are ruthless to its people.  We see the Cuban conflict through the eyes of the people actually living in it.  I think students from middle school and up would be have a better understanding of some of the events in Cuba after reading this book. The poems written in this book do not just follow a set pattern.  Sometimes some of them had a particular rhyme and other times some of them have rhythm.