Four stories follow four racially diverse young Cubans in the first years after the Cuban Revolution. Ana and her mother move to the United States after her father, who fought for Castro, dies in government custody after protesting the new regime’s brutality. Upper-middle-class Miguel’s journey as part of Operation Pedro Pan leads to an orphanage in New York, where he and other light-skinned Cuban refugees protest after realizing they’re given privileges that the Black and brown U.S. kids who live there don’t receive. Zulema lives in rural Cuba, where two young brigadistas are teaching people to read, an opportunity that delights her in spite of the growing tensions around resistance to Castro. In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, Afro-Cuban Juan distances himself from his friend Paco, his “blood brother,” who gets caught up in the idea of being a soldier and finds purpose and camaraderie in spying on neighbors. Individually compelling, with details of each protagonist’s life and the changes they undergo in both circumstance and feelings about themselves and others, these four loosely connected stories offer insight into some of the reasons behind the Cuban Revolution and changes it brought for better (greater access to education and health care for the poor) and for worse (oppression, violence, and exile).  (Ages 10-13)