Forest World
by Margarita Engle (Author)
Booktalk: Edver isn’t happy about being shipped off to Cuba to visit the father he barely knows. The island is a place that no one in Miami ever mentions without a sigh, but travel laws have suddenly changed, and now it’s a lot easier for divided families to be reunited. Technology in Cuba hasn’t caught up with the times, though, and Edver is expecting a long, boring summer.
He was NOT expecting to meet a sister he didn’t know he had. Luza is a year older and excited to see her little brother, until she realizes what a spoiled American he is. Looking for something–anything–they might have in common, the siblings sneak onto the Internet, despite it being forbidden in Cuba, and make up a fake butterfly. Maybe now their cryptozoologist mother will come to visit. But their message is intercepted by a dangerous poacher, and suddenly much more than their family is at stake. Edver and Luza have to find a way to overcome their differences to save the Cuban jungle that they both have grown to love.
Snippet:
Las mariposas–the butterflies–remind me
of miniature angels, skyborne, glowing,
magical and natural at the same time.
Do they know how fragile and brief
their airborne lives
will be?
After we travel to the city to meet my brother
at the airport, maybe I’ll come back to this mossy
riverbank and sculpt a vision of people
with upside-down wings
beneath leafy green trees
rooted in sky. . . .
Copyright © 2017 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.