As in The Poet Slave of Cuba (2006) and The Surrender Tree (2008), both selected as Booklist Editors' Choice titles, Engle's latest book tells another story set in Cuba of those left out of the history books. In fluid, clear, free verse, two young people speak in alternating personal narratives. Daniel, 13, is a German Jewish refugee whose ship is finally allowed entry in Cuba after being turned away from both the U.S. and Canada. He longs to be reunited with his parents, who sent him away after Kristallnacht. Paloma, 12, discovers that her father is getting rich selling visas to refugees and then selling refugees to the Cuban authorities. She and Daniel help hide a Jewish woman and her Christian husband, who is suspected of being a Nazi spy. When adult narrators fill in background, the voices become diffused. But the international secrets make for a gripping story about refugees that becomes sharply focused through the viewpoint of the boy wrenched from home, haunted by the images of shattered glass and broken family.

Escaping Nazi Germany, thirteen-year-old Daniel arrives in Cuba after his ship is turned away from New York. He befriends David, an older Jewish man, and a local girl named Paloma. He also begins to acclimate to his new home despite the increasing presence of Nazi propaganda. In this lyrical story in verse, each of Engle's well-rounded characters has a distinctive voice.

Readers familiar with the author's prior works ( The Poet Slave of Cuba , 2006, etc.) will recognize both style and themes in this verse novel set in World War IIera Cuba. The story, like its companion volumes, unfolds through alternating first-person narrative poems. Daniel, a 13-year-old Holocaust refugee, arrives in Cuba without his parents and is taken under wing of the elderly David, who immigrated to Cuba from Russia in the 1920s. He meets 13-year-old Paloma, who works to assist the refugees in defiance of her disagreeable but powerful father, El Gordo. A bureaucrat, he inflates the price of visas for Jews seeking refuge in Cuba, although he is not above making a few dark contributions of his own while the young characters attempt to do the right thing. Engle's tireless drive to give voice to the silenced in Cuban history provides fresh options for young readers. An author's note reveals her close relationship with this particular part of Cuban history. Stylistically, however, the manipulation of characters and their fictional conflicts seem, in this latest addition, formulaic. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)

Newbery Honor–author Engle (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">The Surrender Tree) again mines Cuban history for her third novel in verse, this time focusing on Jewish refugees who sought asylum from the Nazis in Havana. Covering the period from 1939 to 1942, first-person poems alternate among 13-year-old Paloma, whose father is a corrupt Cuban bureaucrat; David, a Russian immigrant; and Daniel, whom readers meet aboard a ship in Havana harbor. Daniel, also 13, is alone: “My parents are musicians—/ poor people, not rich./ They had only enough money/ for one ticket to flee Germany.” The boy's isolation anchors the story emotionally. Daniel is befriended by Paloma, who feels guilt over her father's acceptance of bribes for visas, and mentored by David, who warns Daniel that he must tame “three giants”—the heat, the language and loneliness. Worries about German spies among the refugees suddenly makes the “J” label on Daniel's passport a coveted symbol, as only non-Jewish Germans are arrested. Engle gracefully packs a lot of information into a spare and elegant narrative that will make this historical moment accessible to a wide range of readers. Ages 12–up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Apr.)

Gr 6-10 Succinct free verse poems (Holt, 2009) by Margarita Engle relate this interesting, little known piece of world history. After Kristallnacht, pogroms staged in 1938 by the Nazis against the Jews in Germany, Daniel's parents have just enough money to buy him a ticket and get him out of the country. Daniel, 13, arrives in Cuba in 1939 aboard a refugee ship that was first turned away from Canada and then from the U.S. The boy is one of the thousands of Jews to receive sanctuary in Cuba during the Holocaust. After Pearl Harbor, Cuban officials grow concerned about espionage and imprison German Christians. The red "J" on Daniel's passport that condemned him in Germany, ironically saves him now. An older Russian Jewish refugee, David, and a young Cuban girl, Paloma, befriend Daniel and the three work together to try to save an elderly couple from persecution. Paloma has secrets and her father, El Gordo, is a corrupt official who defrauds refugees and holds them hostage to his greedy monetary demands. The full-cast narration gives an authentic and distinct voice to each character and will engage listeners. This is historical fiction at its best. A personal note read by the author relates the history of the era and her own family story. Patricia McClune, Conestoga Valley High School, Lancaster, PA

When one thinks of countries circa World War II that allowed ships of German Jewish refugees to land, Cuba is not the first place that springs to mind, yet it is that country in which thirteen-year-old Daniel arrives after escaping Nazi Germany in 1939 after Kristallnacht. In a Cuban culture that is totally antithetical to life in Germany, Daniel must contend with loneliness, a different language, culture, food, and climate. Author of Poet Slave of Cuba (Henry Holt, 2007/VOYA April 2006), Engle introduces characters who touch DanielÆs life in alternate chapters, including burgeoning friends Paloma and David. Twelve-year-old Paloma aids refugees despite her corrupt bureaucrat father, who gets rich by charging them permission to land. Elderly David helps Daniel adjust to life in Cuba, just as he had to do after fleeing Russia years before. Even as Daniel begins to adapt, he still carries the futile hope that his parents will escape and be reunited with him. As this expectation slowly dies, he himself befriends a new, young refugee. Readers who think they might not like a novel in verse will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly and smoothly the story flows. In an author's note, Engle tells of her own family's experience with anti-Semitic violence, relocation, and a Cuban connection. One feels her desire to reveal this little-known part of history. The reader sympathizes with Daniel's plight and is gratified when he does not succumb to his woes but continues to embrace life by mentoring another refugee. The book will provide great fodder for discussion of the Holocaust, self-reliance, ethnic and religious bias, and more.ùJane Van Wiemokly.