The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom
by Margarita Engle
Verse novel · ages 10–14 · 820L (~5th grade) · 176 pages · 2008
Why we'd hand it over
A Newbery winner that uses verse to make a hard history emotionally immediate—kids who think they hate poetry often read this in one sitting, and it's the rare war book that makes 10-year-olds feel the moral weight without trauma.