Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck [Paperback]

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 himel quebradohalf 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 Ta?no 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.

The unique juxtaposition of poetry and cruelty creates a peculiar literary tension. VOYA

* Once again, Engle fictionalizes historical fact in a powerful, original story. Booklist, starred review

Unique and inventive, this is highly readable historical fiction that provides plenty of fodder for discussion. School Library Journal

Like intersecting rip tides, several first-person narratives converge in this verse novel of the sixteenth century. The Horn Book Magazine

The subject matter is an excellent introduction to the age of exploration and its consequences, showing slavery sinking its insidious roots in the Americas and the price paid by those who were there first. Publishers Weekly

Taken individually the stories are slight, but they work together elegantly; the notes and back matter make this a great choice for classroom use. Kirkus Reviews

Margarita Engleis a Cuban American poet, novelist, and journalist whose work has been published in many countries. She is the author of young adult nonfiction books and novels in verse, includingThe Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor Book;The Poet Slave of Cuba;The Firefly Letters; andTropical Secrets. She lives in northern California.