It’s got a beautiful cover, and the author has received all sorts of awards for other books, but I had a hard time really getting into this one, or imagining who would.  It’s a work of historical fiction set in 1912 in the Cuban countryside, told in free-verse poetry.  The main character is a girl who has been diagnosed with what they refer to at that time as “word blindness,” what we would call dyslexia, and these are supposedly her collection of poems she’s written in a blank book her mother gave her.  Besides dealing with her learning disability in a time when society was less accepting of such, she’s also dealing with the turmoil of living in a time of political unrest, and there are vague allusions to a creepy guy who works for her parents who may be trying to get too friendly with the daughters of the house.  The problem with the poetic form to tell the story is that it leaves a lot unsaid, and the reader is left piecing things together.  And to be honest, the girl comes across rather whiney.  I so much wanted to like it more than I did.  I think there is a gap in children’s literature for both hispanic kids and kids with learning disabilities finding themselves represented.  But I don’t think there’s enough here for any of my students to really connect with.