In her newest free-verse novel, Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal, Newbery and Pura Belpré Award winner Margarita Engle
educates us about the digging of the “monstrous ditch” (p. 111) between 1906
and 1914.
Narration shifts amongst various fictional characters,
although we mostly hear from Mateo, a Cuban teenager and aspiring artist
working on the canal. In addition, we meet
Anita, a Panamanian yerbera (herb seller) who befriends Mateo, and Henry, a
Jamaican worker who wants to use his meager earnings to help support his family
back home.
Engle also inserts voices of real historical figures like
John Stevens, the American Chief Engineer of the project…
…and President Theodore Roosevelt, who visited the Canal in
1906.
Most interesting to me are the poems from the perspective of
the original inhabitants of Panama – animals and plants. The trees speak to us, as do howler monkeys,
frogs, butterflies, eagles, and sloths.
Before I discuss everything I love about this book (which is
a lot), I have a confession to make: poetry isn’t really my thing. I appreciate it as an art form and love that
people feel so passionately about expressing themselves with it. Creative writing was my jam throughout middle
and high school, so I’ve written a lot of poetry myself (and enjoyed doing so),
but when it comes down to it, I’m a prose kind of person nowadays.
HOWEVER!
Silver People really works for me.
First of all, I love history, and Engle – as
usual – has
thoroughly researched her topic.
Through
beautiful language and fascinating characters, she gives life to a series of
historical events that I always found boring in school.
In far fewer words than a textbook, she
provides us with more information about the Panama Canal than I ever learned in
my history classes.
For example, I was
surprised to find out that workers were segregated by nationality and ethnicity
– Americans and Northern Europeans; Southern Europeans; and Caribbean Islanders
– and that the first group was paid in gold, while the latter two were paid in
silver.
(You'll have to read it to find out more!)
As you might guess, my very favorite part of the book was
the multiple perspectives that Engle presents.
We hear from people from different countries, ethnicities, and class
levels. Because of these diverse points
of view and various depictions of racial, social, and economic injustice, Silver People would be a fantastic book
to use when teaching older kids about critical literacy.
And not only does Engle share different people’s points of view, but she also gives plants and animals
their own voices. I’ve heard so much in
recent years about the need to integrate school subjects and increase the
amounts of reading and writing in non-language-arts classes – science and
social studies teachers could easily work this book into their lessons about
ecology and/or the Panama Canal.
Silver People will
be available on March 25th,
so go grab a copy! If you're a teacher or parent, share it with your kids, or simply enjoy it yourself. I know I did.
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