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133 pp.
| Harcourt |
March, 2012 |
TradeISBN 978-0-547-58131-6$16.99
(3)
4-6
Engle relates, with some fictionalization, her grandmother Fefa's childhood in dangerous early-twentieth-century Cuba. Fefa suffers from "word-blindness" (dyslexia), but she slowly learns to read and write as a blank book from Mamá becomes her "garden" in which "words sprout / like seedlings." Spare, dreamlike verse pairs perfectly with a first-person narrator whose understanding of written language is unique.