The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano
by Margarita Engle
Verse novel · ages 10–14 · 780L (~4th grade) · 208 pages · 2011
Why we'd hand it over
A luminous, necessary biography in verse—Engle's form mirrors Manzano's own claim to poetry as an act of resistance, and the reading challenges are worth the emotional and historical weight.