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    Wild Dreamers
    Wild Dreamers
    Wild Dreamers
    Ebook227 pages1 hour

    Wild Dreamers

    By Margarita Engle

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Longlisted for the National Book Award

    In this stirring young adult novel-in-verse from award-winning author Margarita Engle, love and conservation intertwine as two teens go on a “transformative journey celebrating the power of overcoming personal struggles to make a lasting impact” (Kirkus Reviews).

    Ana and her mother have been living out of their car ever since her militant father became one of the FBI’s most wanted. Leandro has struggled with debilitating anxiety since his family fled Cuba on a perilous raft.

    One moonlit night, in a wilderness park in California, Ana and Leandro meet. Their connection is instant—a shared radiance that feels both scientific and magical. Then they discover they are not alone: a huge mountain lion stalks through the trees, one of many wild animals whose habitat has been threatened by humans.

    Determined to make a difference, Ana and Leandro start a rewilding club at their school, working with scientists to build wildlife crossings that can help mountain lions find one another. If pumas can find their way to a better tomorrow, surely Ana and Leandro can too.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtheneum Books for Young Readers
    Release dateApr 23, 2024
    ISBN9781665939775
    Author

    Margarita Engle

    Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet and novelist whose work has been published in many countries. Her many acclaimed books include Silver People, The Lightning Dreamer, The Wild Book, and The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor Book. She is a several-time winner of the Pura Belpré and Américas Awards as well as other prestigious honors. She lives with her husband in Northern California. For more information, visit margaritaengle.com.

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      Book preview

      Wild Dreamers - Margarita Engle

      RAFTER

      Leandro

      age 17

      My family fled Cuba

      on a lashed-together jumble

      of inner tubes, balsa wood, and fear

      exactly ten years ago, when I had just learned

      how to read, and all I craved were tales

      of adventure.

      At sea on la balsa, my own true story

      became terrifying in a way

      that makes memory

      dangerous.

      First there was a hidden cavern

      where a mysterious couple

      known as Amado and Liana

      were surrounded by singing dogs

      and cave paintings of a bird-girl

      serenaded by a young man

      with an enchanted guitar

      that is said to attract

      winged and four-legged creatures

      who love melodies the same way

      bird-girl and guitar-boy

      love each other.

      Musical dogs and magical songs

      were enough to send my imagination swirling

      like dough in a mixing bowl at the bakery,

      but there would be no fresh bread

      or sweet pastelitos

      on that perilous raft

      where I lost

      all courage.

      Liana gave us canned food, bottled water,

      and a compass, while Amado crafted sun-hued

      life jackets of yellow nylon stuffed with silky fluff

      from the seedpods of a sacred ceiba tree.

      On a moonless midnight, la balsa was set afloat,

      and soon my parents, my older brother, Emilio, and I

      were all trembling in the sway of massive waves

      as we reeled beyond wheeling circles of sharks

      beneath streamers of migrating

      butterflies

      and hummingbirds.

      I told myself that if fragile winged animals

      could be brave

      above those waves

      so could I, but instead of courage

      all I discovered

      was horror

      followed by sorrow

      and then the mercy

      of a stowaway blue merle puppy

      who knew how to offer comfort

      by singing wordless canine melodies

      that are even more powerful

      than the ocean.

      Cielo the singing dog

      I sang to the younger boy

      because he was the one

      who needed to be saved

      from his own ragged

      rhythm

      of fear

      NOCTURNAL

      Leandro

      It was my fault

      that we were forced to flee our homeland.

      It was my fault that Papi drowned

      while saving me from

      sinking.

      I was the one who’d revealed my parents’ secret

      while we were still in Cuba, and I was the one

      who fell off the raft and needed to be rescued.

      I’ve been nocturnal ever since, kept awake

      by nightmares of monstrous waves, eerie dreams

      that stay with me throughout the next day

      transformed into panic attacks.

      Until the stowaway puppy was trained

      to be my therapy dog, I fainted in water

      and on land.

      Cielo taught me to breathe

      like a canine.

      Cielo the singing dog

      I hum a song

      into his hand

      until he understands

      that it’s time to sit

      and stay still

      so that if he faints

      in the presence

      of waves—either real

      or imagined—he won’t

      forget how to inhale

      slow

      deep

      restful

      animal

      music

      THE WILD PARK

      Ana

      age 17

      I feel like an island

      in a sea of green leaves.

      My bed is the back seat of our small

      cluttered car, parked under huge trees.

      What Mom and I really need

      is a roof and walls, a floor,

      and normal

      sleep,

      but here I am unhoused and awake,

      so I dance along a dirt path beneath oaks

      with branches that bend down like friends

      who are eager to listen to the percussion

      of my furiously

      drumming

      feet.

      UNSHELTERED

      Ana

      This feral park is just one link

      in a long chain of rewilded military outposts

      called the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

      It’s an urban wilderness, a long narrow green belt

      that prevents development, keeping wildlife safe.

      If only there were enough homes for people, too,

      families like mine, with a hardworking mom

      who can’t even afford to rent a converted garage

      this close to luxurious Silicon Valley,

      where even the tiniest studio apartment

      costs a fortune.

      Mom almost makes enough money

      as a government botanist

      at the San Francisco airport,

      where she identifies smuggled herbs

      and rare orchids trafficked by greedy crooks

      who import endangered species,

      but most of her salary is gobbled

      by all the expensive lawyers

      and private detectives

      she hired

      in an effort to locate

      my runaway dad…

      so now the wild park is our outdoor home,

      and all I can do is dance beneath oak trees

      and wish

      pray

      believe

      that somehow

      there can be safe zones

      for both—wild creatures

      and houseless

      humans.

      FLOWER BUTTERFLY

      Ana

      At school I sit through classes

      feeling like a topiary shrub

      trimmed

      and shaped

      by time

      so that no branch

      is ever free to blossom.

      Instead of listening to math formulas,

      I reminisce about a century I’ll never see

      when my Ciboney Taíno namesake—Ana Tanamá—

      was alive, arguing courageously in colonial courts,

      a doomed effort to defend our tribal land

      from the sharp swords and false documents

      of los conquistadores.

      Ana Tanamá means Flower Butterfly in Taíno.

      I love to think of us as close relatives even though

      she was born in 1555, the earliest ancestor

      on my mother’s ornately written family tree,

      where I am the final line.

      DIVERSITY

      Ana

      I don’t speak up in social studies class

      when we talk about a multicultural society.

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