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    Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck
    Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck
    Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck
    Ebook145 pages40 minutes

    Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck

    By Margarita Engle

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 4, 2015
    ISBN9781627797825
    Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck
    Author

    Margarita Engle

    Margarita Engle is the Cuban American author of many books including the verse novels Rima’s Rebellion; Your Heart, My Sky; With a Star in My Hand; The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor winner; and The Lightning Dreamer. Her verse memoirs include Soaring Earth and Enchanted Air, which received the Pura Belpré Award, a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor, and was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, among others. Her picture books include Drum Dream Girl, Dancing Hands, and The Flying Girl. Visit her at MargaritaEngle.com.

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    Reviews for Hurricane Dancers

    3.5/5

    46 ratings11 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I read this short book on the way back from my family's house this Thanksgiving.

      I was surprised to find that it was told in verse--a quick flip-through would have shown me this, but this was one of the Free Book Day selections I had to grab before someone else did. Still, I was impressed with how much I was able to imagine and visualize with only a handful of words. Adjectives were used sparingly but with great effect.

      I think the subtitle actually sells the book short: I picked this up mostly because it looked like it was going to be about pirates, when really it's about a young Spanish-Caribbean boy trying to find his way in a world that sees him as "broken" (the meaning of his name) because he doesn't fit neatly into place. We don't even see a single act of piracy: a "Historical Setting" note in the prelims tells us in (very) brief who the main European players are and how they got there so that we can get straight to Quebrado. While I would have been just as interested in the book without the mention of pirates, it is true that the word caught my eye, so I guess the titling move worked.

      The historical note in the back was great--just what I would have wanted if I'd read this book when it was age-appropriate reading. It was also fun to learn that the Narido and Caucubu story was a Caribbean folk tale that the author incorporated. I was very satisfied with the outcome of the story for the main character (even if my own knowledge of history knows there are storm clouds on the horizon).

      Very short and simple, it's hard to imagine a book like this being published by an author without such a great track record (five different awards with a total of eight between three of the books). Would that every author of something short and sweet had this opportunity!


      Quote Roundup

      12 - When the prisoner sees my power
      over a slave boy, he understands
      that I would show even less mercy
      to a grown man.
      I guess this is an Ojeda-specific demonstration, because as far as I know slaves in the Americas were treated as less than human by everyone--so mistreating Quebrado seems less like a threat than the status quo. Not that most kids reading this book would know that.

      29 - Shredded sails
      and tangled ropes
      form a swaying web
      of smoky nooses.
      Fantastic imagery.

      59 - [Men] capture tree-spirits,
      and turn them into wooden ships
      that serve as floating cages.
      More beautiful imagery, this time to describe the horrific slave ships. As the story goes along, there are other tree-spirit boats that I can appreciate far more--the Spanish ship of captured spirits (human and tree) is all the more terrifying in contrast to Narido's tree-spirit canoe.

      100 - Villagers blame me for all
      that has happened.
      Okay, this one kind of came out of left field. I know we need to get the plot moving, but a little more build-up might have been in order here.
    • 3/5
      Engle uses poetic narrative to tell this historical fiction story of Cuba's first pirate, his slave, and a hostage when all are shipwrecked on the island. Weaving in a love story as well as tales of slavery, Engle manages to portray the simplistic life of the Taino Indians on Cuba before all was ruined by the Conquistadores of Spain.
    • 4/5
      This short novel written in verse tells the story of a boy who is captured and forced to be a slave aboard a pirate ship. The ship is destroyed in a hurricane, but he is saved by a kind villager. Quebrado can speak both Spanish and Taino. When his captors end up in the same village, he is able to tell the villagers what kind of people they are- they are then banished from the community. Quebrado searches for his identity throughout the novel and, at the end, he is happy and finally at peace. The novel is told from multiple narratives which makes it more interesting. This would be an interesting novel to use when studying the brutal Spanish conquest of the Americas.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoy her books and keep reading them. It could just be that they are set in a place I'd enjoy visiting, but also because they contain deeper truths. They show independence and what making your own choices looks like."If unlike metals can merge, why not people?""My quiet voice feelslike a small canoegliding back and forthbetween worldsmade of words."
    • 3/5
      Historical fiction is not usually my style. I thought it was well written.
    • 3/5
      Interesting historical fiction written in verse.
    • 2/5
      The book starts out with a brief historical setting and list of main characters. With a historical fiction book I like when the author includes some sort of background on which they drew their ideas from. I also found the cast list to be very helpful since there were five main characters, all with complicated names.The book was divided into six main sections: Wild Sea, Brave Earth, Hidden, The Sphere Court, The Sky Horse, Far Light, and told from five different perspectives.Quebrado, a young boy who was captured from home to become a slave on the seas.“Sailors call me a boyof broken dreams,but I think of myselfas a place—a strange placedreamed by the sea,belonging nowhere,half floating islandand halfwandering wind.”Bernardino, a ruthless pirate who wants nothing but riches.“I once owned a vast land grantwith hundreds of naturals,Indian slaves who perishedFrom toil, hunger and plagues.Crops withered, mines failed.All my dreams of wealth vanished.”Alonso, is the governor of Venezuela, conqueror of the tribes, and now he’s Bernardino’s hostage.“There were days when my swordkilled ten thousand.Now, all those dead spirits haunt me,and I am the one on a shipin chains.”Narido, a young fisherman who helps Quebrado after he washed ashore from the shipwreck.“Everyone calls me River Beingbecause I catch so many fishwith my feathered arrowsand winged spears.Caucuba, a young girl who has stolen Narido’s heart. “When Narido is close,my mind swoopsand tumbleslike the windin a stormy sky.”I was quite disappointed in this book having read it right after Engle’s other MG book, The Firefly Letters, which really captured my heart. This time around I found the story lacking any emotional depth, I just didn’t connect with the story or any of the five main characters.
    • 3/5
      Significant for its unique subject matter and perspective. As we've come to expect from Margarita Engle, this book has a great author's note and is based on some fantastic research.
    • 4/5
      A young boy named Quebrado is being traded from ship to ship in the Caribbean. Half-Spanish, half-Indian, he is delicately straddling two worlds as he tries to translate between languages to appease the ship’s captain. In a series of poems, told from the point of view of Quebrado and other characters, the sorrow and brutality of the Caribbean slave trade comes to life. The poems themselves are short, but the impact of their words is not to be understated. High school students should appreciate this eloquent, novel way of telling this tragic piece of history. Recommended. For ages 15-18.
    • 4/5
      Told in verse through multiple narrators, Engle's latest book takes readers to the world of pirates in the 16th century in the Carribean. The pirate part is the kid appeal; the appeal for me was the beauty of the language, which is Engle's hallmark. The sailors call him el quebrado," the broken one, a child of two shalltered worlds, half islander and half outsider," He's traded ship to ship and ends up under the tyrant Bernadino de Talavera. When a hurricane hits, and Quebrado survives, he adjusts to his new life and comes to be in a position to decide the fate of his former captors. A great book for teaching point of view, and for reader's theater --having kids read the poems by various narrators. In every poem, the first person narration gets readers inside such very different personalities. exp
    • 3/5
      I received Hurricane Dancers as an early review copy from Goodreads as part of the giveaway program. It was a quick enjoyable read, told from the point of view of 5 individual characters in verse form. At first I wasn't quite sure how it would read but each poem or verse has been created in a way that brings the whole story to life. The characters are each engaging as well as have their own definite voices. I was expecting there to be more detail into the actual shipwreck itself and the circumstances, which is based on the book description. I also did not realize that the book was to be told in verse, but I have to say overall it was enjoyable.

    Book preview

    Hurricane Dancers - Margarita Engle

    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

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