A verse novel introduces the inspiring Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, known among family and friends as Tula, who grew up in early nineteenth-century Cuba with the heart and soul of an abolitionist and feminist. At thirteen, Tula is a voracious reader and writer but does both somewhat secretly in her wealthy family. Inspired by the work of Cuban poet Jose Maria Heredia, who lives in exile in the United States because of his radical stance against slavery in Cuba, she begins writing plays with antislavery messages. Tula's unsympathetic, widowed mother does not understand her smart, spirited daughter and promises her, at fourteen, to an older man in marriage. A family tragedy releases Tula from the marriage and she later falls in love with Sab, a former slave, but her love is unrequited-Sab is in love with his former owner's daughter, who is, in turn, betrothed to a wealthy man. Still, Sab becomes Tula's inspiration. "Can a free person / really understand one whose dreams / must fly up and soar / high above the depths of slavery? ... Is my imagination enough / or do I need to add the ways / in which I myself / have felt enslaved?" In an author's note, Margarita Engle explains that Tula's novel Sab, which she wrote at age twenty-two, argues against the slavery of Africans and indigenous peoples, and the slavery of women being forced into marriages they do not want. Back matter includes more information about Tula and Heredia, as well as references. (Age 13 and older)

Tula is a girl who yearns for words, who falls in love with stories, but in Cuba, girls are not allowed an education. No, Tula is expected to marry well--even though she's filled with guilt at the thought of the slaves Mamá will buy with the money gained by marrying Tula to the highest bidder. Then one day, hidden in a dusty corner of a convent library, Tula discovers the banned books of a rebel poet. The poems speak to the deepest part of her soul, giving her a language with which to write of the injustice around her. In a country that isn't free, the most daring abolitionists are poets who can veil their work with metaphors, and Tula becomes just that. In powerful, haunting verses of her own, Margarita Engle evokes the voice of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, known as Tula, a young woman who was brave enough to speak up for those who could not. --