The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist

Poetic dystopian? Well, not really but in this gorgeously written, wonderful little book the author describes a girl ahead of her time whose voice cannot be quieted despite many attempts by her mother and mother country. Engle's "Tula" rejects the status quo of slavery and women as property. She is ahead of her time and "fights" injustices through words, stories and actions. She pays a price for her voice because silence is unbearable. A beautiful book.

I have never been disappointed by one of Margarita Engle’s books and The Lightning Dreamer is no exception. It’s the fascinating true story of a Cuban woman who worked both for the abolition of slavery and equal rights for women. My guess is that many of you have never heard of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellanda, I certainly hadn’t. Engle’s ability to bring to life these lesser known but incredibly important historical characters is part of what makes her work so significant. Her novels in verse make historical characters like Tula accessible and real to younger readers. In writing this review, I was reminded of my obsession with biographies when I was in elementary school. When I was eight years old I decided that I was going to read every biography in my school’s library. Our biographies were shelved alphabetically by the name of the person the book was about. When I think about the books that I read then, I remember a number of books about Davy Crockett, Grover Cleveland and Amelia Earhart. Obviously, I didn’t make it all the way through, it would seem I stopped somewhere around E. But in thinking back, I’m struck by the lack of diversity in the people represented on my library’s shelves. I can only hope that with the availability of books like that of Engle things aren’t the same now. If books such as The Lightning Dreamer, The Surrender Tree, or Hurricane Dancers had been available to me then, I may have made it past E in my quest to read all those biographies. In telling the story of Tula, Engle’s book opens up a number of relevant topics for classroom discussion. As Tula becomes increasingly aware of the disparities in society, she begins to both ponder and write about things such as slavery, interracial marriage, and women’s rights. Tula grapples with these moral and ethical dilemmas in a language that invites students to question and struggle with her. She provides a way to teach our younger students about times when equal rights for people of color and women were explicitly denied. While it’s important to continue to discuss the ways in which equality is still not a reality for all people today, it’s just as important to discuss the historical contexts that our contemporary struggles for equality come from. Engle gives us a strong female protagonist who fights to remain authentic to the things she believes in, but in doing this, Engle also shows how hard it is to be that kind of person. It’s never easy to go against main stream society or to be the outcast among one’s friends or family. Through Tula, Engle gives voice to what it feels like to be alienated or exiled for one’s beliefs. These are powerful ideas for our students to think about—both those who can identify with Tula’s loneliness and those who realize they may be like the people who mocked Tula for being different. Tula is a powerful character, not just because of what she believed, but because of how she chose to stand up for those beliefs. She fought for equality and human rights through her stories and her poetry. She used the power of words as a means to change the minds of those around her. How valuable a lesson for the students in our classrooms—that our words are one of the most powerful tools we have for fighting against the things that try to hold us back. I’ll leave you with the words from Gertrudis Gómez de Avellanda that inspired the title of the book— “The slave let his mind fly free, and his thoughts soared higher than the clouds where lightning forms.” The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist has received a number of awards: 2014 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, School Library Journal's Top Ten Latino-themed Books for 2013, Teaching for Change 2013 Favorite, Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature selection as a Best Multicultural Book of 2013, 2014 Pura Belpré Honor Book, and International Reading Association Top Chapter Book for 2013. Our free educator’s guide is available on our wordpress blog Vamos a Leer.

Overall, this book is beautiful in the way the author portrays the feelings and thoughts of a young, Cuban girl who is prohibited from being able to free her mind on paper and in person. The story focuses on a Cuban girl who is fascinated with reading and writing stories of her own but unfortunately, due to the norms of her society in Cuba, she is restricted from freeing her thoughts and imagination on paper and books. If that isn’t bad enough, she still must await the day that her parents find her a rich man to marry in order for the family to inherit great wealth. But to Tula, there is nothing more valuable than a blank piece of paper and an imagination that is set to roam free. One day, Tula discovers the banned books of a rebel poet that speak to the deepest part of her soul and gives her the voice she never had. A voice that could speak for those who could not. A voice that could talk about the injustices of her daily lives around her. With these poems and stories, Tula is free to let her imagination and thoughts run free. But Tula sooner or later begins to realize, freedom is not really free. She eventually finds a way to use poetry as a way to rebel against her forced marriage, fight for freedom, and libertae the foundations of slavery. The way the whole story is told is beautiful. Words and poems flow just like the smooth water in a river; smooth enough to soothe one’s thirst, but if left in long enough, can cut through rock as well. This book is truly a prime example of fine poetry. The use of metaphors and fine literature intrigues the reader and truly changes the perspective of one. Tula is a prime example of a strong, independent, intelligent woman who was brave and courageous enough to stand up and speak for those who could not. One word at a time, one sentence at a time, one stanza at a time, Tula finds a way to enter our hearts and sympathize with her through the struggles of her everyday life, trapped into a society where women are not allowed an education; where no one understands her. Tula is just one of the many women who underwent these struggles. Reading and experiencing the life of Tula through her perspective helps one to realize and empathize not only with the protagonist, but also with the other women of Cuba as we soon learn to realize that Tula is not the only woman to experience this. “The Lightning Dreamer” is truly a beautiful book that is more than worth reading. It is a book that delivers a message that will stay with you forever.

Written for readers age 12 and up, this historical fiction biography about Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda begins in 1827 in Cuba. I knew nothing about her until I began reading the book, grew curious, so stopped and did some Internet research before returning to savor THE LIGHTNING DREAMER. Told entirely in free verse poetry with most poems being one page long (and double spaced) written in the first person from different people's perspectives was an approachable way to convey a lot of opinions and issues of the day in under 175 pages. The poems were easy to understand and the opinions clearly show that Gertrudis Gomez de Avelleneda was ahead of her time yet fit in well with the views in America today so are easily accepted and relatable to today's teens. The work lay in explaining what societal norms were in Cuba back then regarding the role of women, the silencing of women's opinions and the fact that they could not vote or have a voice in the community, about arranged marriages where the girl was essentially bought by the husband-to-be, slavery and racial relations with black slaves, children born out of wedlock (many biracial) and left at a Catholic orphanage and inter-racial romantic relationships. Most of the book focuses on her early teen years and avoiding one arrange marriage, issues of feeling constricted due to the lack of women's rights including not being able to be formally schooled and being pressured to not write or dicuss her opinions. It included her work with orphans and poetry writing, and a close relationship with their freed slave cook. The book then has a section that is fictionalized the most about Sab, a black man who she loved but could not have because he loved another. I felt that is where the book started to feel weak. The last section is short and tells of writing a book about inter-racial relations and slavery which she published as Sab. The end notes have a bit of information about her life which include major points not touched upon in the book itself. This is probably because her having a child out of wedlock and being involved with a married man is not something the author or publisher may have wanted included in a book for junior high school students or to keep the page count short. The end note mentions she had a child before she got married but did not mention that she had two affairs with married men, one of which resulted in the conception of her child. In any event the book was impressive and I was hooked by it and enjoyed the free verse. I think teens will like this book, especially girls who will easily identify with her and will hate the idea of arranged marriages and marrying for money not love, as well as agreeing that girls should have a voice too and should have rights. She was an outspoken feminist who was way ahead of her time. I rate this book 5 stars = I Love It.

I appreciate that the author of this volume may have wanted to present the story of Tula in verse in order to pay homage to one of Tula's greatest talents, but I feel like the format impeded the relaying of actual information about this extraordinary woman. Since the book is geared toward a pre-adolescent audience, the average intended reader may not leave the volume particularly interested in researching Avelleneda independently to actually find out more of the story of her life (beyond the sketch presented at the end) which means all they will take with them is a fragmented image of an obsessive girl. The word obsessive is used purposefully because the book repeats key images and thoughts a good bit, particularly in the earlier sections. In the later portion, it suffers from a different problem -- stringing out a refitting of Sab to dress out Tula's life. I think both the repetition and round about approach will also turn off older readers capable of enjoying a more thoughtful narrative. This volume would work well as an introduction to Avelleneda as part of a larger, guided study in school, and older readers already familiar with her story may find the poetry enjoyable. However, I don't think it would be a hit with the target age group without additional context.

The novel begins in 1827. Tula’s mother, who twice made the mistake of marrying for love, is desperate to prevent her thirteen-year-old daughter from taking a similar path. Mamá’s motivations are clear-cut. A wealthy connection through Tula is the family’s only hope for propping up their shaky economic status. In 19th-century colonial Cuba, arranged marriages are the social norm, but Tula’s mother worries that a girl who buries her nose in books will not attract the right kind of husband–a rich one. Who is Tula? Margarita Engle is acclaimed for novels in verse that bring to life history’s outliers, young men and women from previous centuries who thought and acted in surprisingly modern ways, and Tula stands tall among them. She’s based on Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, a Cuban poet who championed liberty for all humans and wrote Sab, an abolitionist novel, the first of its kind in Spanish. Sab predated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Harriet Beecher Stowe classic, by eleven years. Avellaneda’s importance as an abolitionist and feminist writer is not widely known in English-speaking America. The Lightning Dreamer corrects this oversight and imagines Avellaneda’s formative years, just as she began to discover the life-changing force of poetry. Marriageability is not the only issue that arises from Tula’s penchant for reading. She happens upon the forbidden poetry of José María Heredia, whose sharp observations awaken Tula’s passion for justice. In colonial Cuba, injustice is everywhere. Her eyes take in the plight of African slaves, biracial babies abandoned to the convent, lovers kept apart by miscegenation taboos, and girls like herself, doomed to business arrangements thinly masquerading as marriages. Tula expresses her ardor for justice through poetry, which she burns to keep her mother from discovering. When Tula refuses the marriage that her grandfather arranges, she must rise to meet a string of new challenges. The inheritance is lost and her family is condemned to relative poverty. For a while, Tula finds refuge in a storyteller’s community, where she becomes entangled in an unrequited love. She moves away from the countryside to Havana, where she supports herself through tutoring. In 1836, her brother, Manuel, warns her that their mother is cooking up another arranged match. Tula flees for Spain, expecting to find greater social and creative freedom there. The Lightning Dreamer is written in free verse and is voiced through multiple characters. Tula is the most frequent speaker. Short segments provide other characters’ point of view. A partial list includes Tula’s mother; Manuel; Caridad, the freed slave who works for the family; the nuns who offer Tula space to read and write in peace; and Sab. Each character speaks in first person. I imagine them as a series of stage players delivering brief and sometimes prejudicial monologues reflecting on Tula’s choices. This approach perfectly suits the fictionalized treatment of a young poet. The language is spare and often stunning, capturing vivid images and profound interiority.

THE LIGHTNING DREAMER: Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist is the story of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, called Tula. She grows up to be a poet, novelist, and playwright who combined abolitionist and feminist views in her writing. As Margarita Engle wrote in her historical note, Tula "helped readers question the way they viewed slavery, interracial marriage, and the broader issue of voluntary marriage" (171, ARC). Engle's novel in verse goes back to when Tula was a child to explore how she became interested in storytelling and radical subjects. Using poetry to tell the story of a poet is a terrific choice. The poems alternate between character's voices and the verse feels like the rhythm of internal thoughts. It lends immediacy and potency to the emotions felt by the narrators. It's also a good way to bring many points of view to the story without the head hopping becoming too confusing. And the subjects addressed are full of nuance. Tula's immediate concern is her impending marriage. She's fourteen, old enough. Marriage means giving up her freedom. She isn't even supposed to be literate, but her brother and nuns helped her. Tula's Mamá is one of villains of the novel. She wants Tula to marry an old, rich man and will likely use the money from the marriage to buy slaves. But the marriage is what she thinks is best for her daughter. "Tula needs a wealthy husband/now,/right now,/before she tries to choose her own,/the way I did, without any regard/for her family's/finances" (79, ARC). Engle, a Newbury Honor recipient, has strong control of the language. Look at the excerpt above - the emphasis on time, on family versus family finances. But it's not distracting language. They're easy to read and clear, delivering a complex history in bites perfect for a young audience. I found THE LIGHTNING DREAMER fascinating, even though I had never heard of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda before. Her story is sometimes harrowing and often inspiring. I looked up some of her work as soon as I finished THE LIGHTNING DREAMER, eager to read her poetry. I think the weakest part of the novel was a love triangle with a boy named Sab who was already in love with a girl named Carlota, which comes into play near the end of the novel. Turns out they where made up based on speculation that the characters in Tula's first novel Sab where based on real people she'd met while exiled to a country estate. It's not a terrible bit, but somewhat sappy compared to the rest. THE LIGHTNING DREAMER is a lyrical, poignant look at an influential woman and artist. This is the sort of book that could be broccoli (as in, "Eat your vegetables!"), but the style makes it quite palatable. (Note: I actually love broccoli, but you know what I mean.)

Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, nicknamed Tula, was an actual female writer of early 19th century Cuba (and later Spain) who from a young age dared to refuse marriage, oppose slavery, and take a stand for female rights. In this highly original narrative in the form of poetry, Margarita Engle tells the story of Tula, primarily from the ages of 13-16, but also later when at 22, she has left the family and moved to Havana. Author Margarita Engle presents Tula's story in free verse - most poems in the voice of Tula, but others in the voice of her brother Manuel, her mother, Caridad the cook (who was once a slave, freed by her father), nuns who support her reading, orphans with whom she volunteers her creative talents, and later, Sab, a love interest who is unacceptable to her family because he is dark-skinned. Most of the book tells of Tula's adolescent years, when her mother is condemning her reading and writing, and demanding that she enter into an arranged marriage with a wealthy older man and slaveowner for the sake of family wealth and power: "If she calls me masculine, I wear my best lace, flutter a flowery silk fan, and keep myself silent, wishing that I could openly state my truth: I don't want to be a man, just a woman with a voice." Tula's father, with whom she shared a love of books and humanitarian values, has died. Only with Caridad, who shares the travails of her past, and younger brother Manuel, can she be herself. With the discovery of the poems of the banned rebel poet, Jose Maria Heredia, Tula becomes increasingly committed to her writing, and personal freedom - for herself, for slaves, for girls and women living restricted lives. A few years later, she attends secret poetry meetings, has illicit love affairs, and begins to publish her own writing. Particularly touching is Tula's bond with Caridad, the freed slave who cooks for her family, and her attraction to Caridad's life stories. Like Caridad, she feels like an exile, able to "free herself only/with words." Tula also identifies with her caged goldfinch, and reflects: "I must be a night-flying bird with clipped wings. Will I ever be brave enough to sing in sunlight?.... Will my words always be glowing coals instead of leaping flames?" THE LIGHTNING DREAMER is a beautifully written lyrical book likely to appeal both to young adults and adults - especially those who from an early age found solace in reading and creative expression, and felt empathy for those options were limited due to gender, race and/or cultural norms. My only criticism of this book is that it is not longer. Author Engle could have included a few of Heredia's poems or included more poetic narrative expressing Tula's life when she is 22 in Havana (which covers only the fifth part of her five-part story). The real Avellenada was indeed shunned by her family, and eventually moved to Spain where she published the novel SAB - an interracial love story that was popular in Spain but banned in Cuba. In the appendix of THE LIGHTNING DREAMER, Margarita Engle includes bibliographic references, historical notes about the lives of the real Tula and the poet Heredia, and a few of Tula Avellaneda's actual poems, in both Spanish and English. A few lines from one of them: "Leap, little bird, leap... A clear exit is yours, look, enjoy, breathe... you are already free."