The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba

In this quietly powerful novel in verse, which is young adult historical fiction based on a true story, award-winning poet Margarita Engle paints a portrait of early women’s rights pioneer Fredrika Bremer and the journey to Cuba that transformed her life.

When Fredrika Bremer asked the Swedish Consulate to find her a quiet home in the Cuban countryside, she expected a rustic thatched hut, not this luxurious mansion in Matanzas, where Elena, the daughter of the house, can barely step foot outside.

The freedom to roam is something that women and girls in Cuba do not have. Yet when Fredrika sets off to learn about the people of this magical island, she is accompanied by Cecilia, a young slave who longs for her lost home in Africa. Soon Elena sneaks out of the house to join them. As the three women explore the lush countryside, they form a bond that breaks the barriers of language and culture.

The Firefly Letters is...

A Pura Belpré Honor Book
An American Library Association Notable Children's Book
A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year

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176 pages

Average rating: 8

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Mrs. Awake Taco

Nov 13, 2024

8/10 stars

I enjoyed this book for the different perspectives it brought. Some of the narrative is told from the perspective of a young slave girl, Cecilia, who has been brought recently from Africa. Another portion is from the daughter of her owner, Elena, who quietly rebels against the slavery in the island as well as her own upbringing as a girl with very little freedom because of social restrictions. The third portion was from the view of Fredrika, a young Swedish woman who also felt repressed and unfairly treated and who comes to the Caribbean to experience freedom and to write. She is based on a real woman who wrote about the unfairness and cruelty of slavery from her personal experiences visiting the Caribbean and the United States.

All the different perspectives melded together nicely to create a stark picture of what slavery was like in the Caribbean in the 1800s. It does a good job of briefly and simply discussing the horrors of slavery without being too explicit and graphic in its depictions.

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