Poetry Friday- When the Mapou Sings

Pinede, Nadine. When the Mapou Sings
December 3, 2024 by Candlewick Press

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

In 1935, Lucille is living in a small village in Haiti with her father, who is a woodworker, and her aunt Lila, since her mother passed away shortly after Lucille was born. Lucille can hear the mapou tree sing to her, and feels that her mother communicates with her that way. She attends a convent school run by Belgian nuns with her friend Fifina, for whom she has deep feelings. While the people of the village are happy that the occupation by Americans has ended, the new government is not particularly helpful. When Fifina's father, who runs a newspaper, runs afoul of the section chief, he is beaten, and Fifina is forced to become an "outside wife" to him. Lucille is devastated, and shortly after this, her mapou tree is cut down. She reports the tree as stolen to the police, and even takes them to the section chief's house to see that he has cut down the tree. Of course, this puts Lucille in danger. Her father and aunt arrange with her cousin, Phebus, for Lucille to go to the big city and live with Madame Ovide. She has to deal with the housekeeper, Celestina, but sells carvings and wood polish at the market to earn some money to try to get home. Madame's son, Oreste, is home from attending college in New York City, where he is involved with the NAACP. The two slowly fall in love, and when Celestina finds out, Madame Ovide sends Lucille to work in a house she is renting to an American. This American turns out to be Zora Neal Hurston, who is very sympathetic to Lucille. Through a visitor, Lucille finds out that Fifina might have run away from the section chief and lost a baby.  Eventually, Lucille helps Hurston with some of her research, but later gets embroiled in the political unrest, reconnects with Oreste, and even helps save his mother. 

Strengths: While there are a few books about life in Haiti (Danticant's Eight Days and Behind the Mountains) and books about Haitian immigrants to the US,  (Farrar's A Song for Bijou, Arnold's The Year I Flew Away, Rigaud's A Girl's Guide to Love and Magic), I haven't really seen anything about different historical periods in Haiti. This was a fascinating look at an area of the world that is still having many difficulties. Lucille was an interesting character, and seeing her interact with Zora Neale Hurston was quite interesting. 
Weaknesses: Novels in verse are beautiful to read, but often don't have the backgroud information necessary to understand concepts or background that are unfamiliar to young readers. I'm usually pretty good on world history, but even I struggled with putting this story into historical context. 
What I really think: This is similar to a more Young Adult version of Amal Unbound, when it comes to a young woman having to work in domestic servitude, and had a lot of intersting Haitian history in it, but would be better placed in a high school library than a middle school one.