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Overview
Quebrado has been traded from pirate ship to ship in the Caribbean Sea for as long as he can remember. The sailors he toils under call him el quebrado-half islander, half outsider, a broken one. Now the pirate captain Bernardino de Talavera uses Quebrado as a translator to help navigate the worlds and words between his mother's Taíno Indian language and his father's Spanish.
But when a hurricane sinks the ship and most of its crew, it is Quebrado who escapes to safety. He learns how to live on land again, among people who treat him well. And it is he who must decide the fate of his former captors. Latino interest.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781627797825 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) |
| Publication date: | 08/04/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Lexile: | 1170L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 374 KB |
| Age Range: | 12 - 17 Years |
About the Author
Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of many verse novels, memoirs, and picture books, including The Surrender Tree, All the Way to Havana, Bravo!, Drum Dream Girl, and Dancing Hands. Awards include a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpré Medals, Golden Kite Award, Walter Honor, Jane Addams Award, PEN U.S.A., and NSK Neustadt Prize, among others. Margarita served as the national 2017-2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Recent young adult verse novels include Wings in the Wild and Wild Dreamers. Recent picture books include Water Day and The Sculptors of Light.
Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives on the island. She studied agronomy and botany along with creative writing, and now lives in central California.
www.margaritaengle.com
Facebook: Margarita Engle
Twitter: @margaritapoet
Instagram: @engle.margarita
Read an Excerpt
Hurricane Dancers
The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck
By Margarita Engle
Henry Holt and Company
Copyright © 2011 Margarita EngleAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62779-782-5
CHAPTER 1
Part One
Wild Sea
Quebrado
I listen
to the song
of creaking planks,
the roll and sway
of clouds in sky,
wild music
and thunder,
the groans
of wood,
a mourning moan
as this old ship
remembers
her true self,
her tree self,
rooted
and growing,
alive,
on shore.
Quebrado
One glance is enough to show me
the pirate's mood.
There are days when he treats me
like an invisible wisp of night,
and days when he crushes me
like a cockroach on his table.
I try to slip away
each time I see
his coiled fist,
even though
on a ship
there is no place
to hide.
Quebrado
The sailors call me el quebrado,
"the broken one," a child of two
shattered worlds, half islander
and half outsider.
My mother was a natural, a "native"
of the island called cu ba, "Big Friend,"
home of my first few wild
hurricane seasons.
My father was a man of the sea,
a Spanish army deserter.
When my mother's people
found him on horseback,
starving in the forest,
they fed him, and taught him
how to live like a natural.
To become a peaceful Taíno,
he traded his soldier-name
for Gua Iro, "Land Man."
He and my mother
were happy together,
until a plague took the village,
and none were left
but my wandering father,
who roamed far away,
leaving me alone
with his copper-hued horse
in an unnatural village
of bat-winged spirits
and guava-eating ghosts.
Sailors call me a boy
of broken dreams,
but I think of myself
as a place — a strange place
dreamed by the sea,
belonging nowhere,
half floating island
and half
wandering wind.
Quebrado
I survived alone in the ghostly village,
with only my father's abandoned horse
to console me, until a moonlit night
when I was seized by rough seafarers,
wild men who beat me
and taught me how to sail,
and how to lose hope.
I was traded from ship to ship as a slave,
until I ended up in the service
of Bernardino de Talavera,
the pirate captain of this stolen vessel.
The pirate finds me useful
because I know two tongues,
my mother's flutelike Taíno,
and my father's drumlike Spanish.
Together, my two languages
sound like music.
Quebrado
How can a father abandon a son
in such a dangerous world?
Why did he leave me alone
in that village of ghosts
with only his red horse
for company?
What kind of horseman
abandons his steed?
A sorrowful man,
that is the answer.
I have spent all my years
accepting sad truths.
Bernardino de Talavera
I once owned a vast land grant
with hundreds of naturales,
Indian slaves who perished
from toil, hunger, and plagues.
Crops withered, mines failed.
All my dreams of wealth vanished.
Soldiers soon gave chase,
trying to send me to debtors' prison,
so I captured this ship and seized
a valuable hostage, Alonso de Ojeda,
Governor of Venezuela,
an immense, jungled province
on the South American mainland,
where he is known
as the most ruthless
conqueror of tribes.
When I heard that Ojeda
had been wounded by a warrior's
frog-poisoned arrow,
I offered help, assuring the Governor
that my ship would gladly carry him
to any port with Spanish doctors.
I offered the illusion of mercy,
and Ojeda was desperate enough
to believe me.
to Quebrado
The pirate demands a ransom,
but the hostage insists
he has nothing to give,
so while they argue,
I lean over the creaking ship's
splintered rail,
watching with wonder
as blue dolphins
leap and soar
like winged spirits.
My mother believed dolphins
can change their shape, turning
into men who come ashore
to sing and dance during storms.
If legless creatures
can be transformed,
maybe someday
I will change too.
to Bernardino de Talavera
I catch the broken boy,
and it takes only a few quick blows
to convince Ojeda
of my strength.
When the prisoner sees my power
over a slave boy, he understands
that I would show even less mercy
to a grown man.
Knights who have lost
their guns and swords
are remarkably easy
to frighten.
Alonso de Ojeda
All my life, I have been triumphant.
On the isle of Hispaniola, I tricked
a chieftain by offering him a ride on my horse,
then trapping him in handcuffs.
I sent him away in the hold of a ship,
to be sold as a curiosity in Spain,
but a hurricane sank the vessel
while the chief was still shackled.
Expecting rebellion, I slaughtered
his queen and all her people,
to keep them from seeking revenge.
There were days when my sword
killed ten thousand.
Now, all those dead spirits haunt me,
and I am the one on a ship
in chains.
Quebrado
The life of a ship's slave
is hard labor and fists,
or deep water and sharks.
When I sleep, I belong to the land.
In dreams, I work in a field,
planting roots in rich soil.
In dreams, I feel like a spirit of the air,
riding my father's leaping horse.
In dreams, I feel free,
until the sun rises and my eyes open,
and once again I must struggle
beneath the weight
of flapping sails
and heavy ropes.
Quebrado
My mother loved the green parrots
and red macaws that made the sky
above our village look so cheerful.
She always had at least one raucous bird
perched on her shoulder.
As if by magic, the clever birds
learned to speak two languages.
My first words of Taíno and Spanish
were mastered by listening to songs
recited by feathered creatures
of the air.
Now, each time I think of home,
I remember that the world
is big enough to offer more
than sorrow.
Quebrado
The sea is wild today.
The sails look like wings.
Sailors chant tales while they work —
sweet songs about the Island of Mermaids,
and scary ones about the Isle of Giants,
with green jungles where huge women
turn into monsters, clasping sailors
in their talons.
The sea is wild tonight.
The roaring wind
sounds hungry.
Alonso de Ojeda
Shackled to a rotting wall
in the ship's stinking hold,
I feel as helpless as a turtle
flipped on its back,
awaiting the cook's
probing knife.
I clench my fists
and struggle
to fight my way
out of the handcuffs,
while ghosts
gather around me,
watching
and waiting. ...
Bernardino de Talavera
The hostage begs for mercy,
but I have enough trouble
just trying to figure out
how to steer
the stubborn ship
in this devil wind,
and how to reach land,
and where to await
fair weather.
In a storm, the only decision
that really matters
is direction.
Quebrado
The sky is alive with cloud dragons
and wind spirits.
When a sailor is almost swept overboard,
I wish that I had a gold ring in my ear,
like the one the pirate wears for luck.
His red shirt is meant to ward away
evil winds, and he ties a green cloth
around his head for protection.
The rest of us are dressed in rags,
except for the shackled hostage,
who wears armor and an amulet
with the painted face of a wistful saint.
I wonder if the saint looks so sad
because she knows how many people
Ojeda has killed.
Quebrado
I carry a brass bell
that clangs
with each step,
hoping to soothe
the angry wind
by ringing out
a festive melody.
If only my own
rising fear
of this howling storm
and the pirate's fury
and Ojeda's screams
could be calmed
by a remedy
as simple
as music.
Alonso de Ojeda
I am a short man, but strong and agile.
I was daring enough to lead
the bold expedition that named
this entire New World.
Amerigo Vespucci was just a merchant
on one of my ships, and even though
the foolish mapmaker chose his name
instead of mine, the true honor
of claiming this vast wilderness
still rightfully belongs to me.
Someday, all maps and charts
will proclaim the Alonsos,
not the Americas!
Quebrado
The ship groans,
wind shrieks,
and I feel the storm
breathing
all around me
like an enormous
creature
in a nightmare
where beasts
growl
and chase. ...
On a ship
there is no place
to run away.
Bernardino de Talavera
I am not a man of prayer,
but every hurricane earns its name
by falling on the feast day
of a saint who has the power
to calm wild winds
and spare fragile ships,
so even though I have no calendar,
and I am just guessing at today's date,
I roar the name of Santiago,
patron of my homeland,
Spain's armored warrior-saint,
galloping on his ghostly
white stallion
of clouds. ...
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Hurricane Dancers by Margarita Engle. Copyright © 2011 Margarita Engle. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Epigraphs,
Historical Setting,
Cast of Characters,
Part One: Wild Sea,
Part Two: Brave Earth,
Part Three: Hidden,
Part Four: The Sphere Court,
Part Five: The Sky Horse,
Part Six: Far Light,
Author's Note,
Historical Note,
References,
Acknowledgments,
About the Author,
Copyright,