While Serafina's circumstances differ dramatically from those of most readers, her conflicting emotions about family dynamics and friendship, and her struggle to assert her aspirations, will resonate with many. Inspired by the female doctor who tended to her brother, she harbors a longing to attend school: 'In the quiet,/ my own heart beat/ its unspoken secret./ I promised myself/ that one day/ I would be a real doctor.' Burg's understated free verse liberally sprinkled with Haitian Creole phrases gains power as Serafina's family is displaced by a flood, which is cruelly followed by the 2010 earthquake the author skillfully weaves in information about the country's traumatic history in a way that makes it personally significant to Serafina. She has witnessed the death of her infant brother, wishing and wondering if she could have done more to save him.

Secretly, however, Serafina wishes to go to school and become a doctor. Mourning the recent death of her baby brother while anxiously awaiting the birth of a new sibling, Serafina tries to please and help her family. COPY ISBN Gr 46 Serafina is just 11, but she fetches water from a stream every day and helps her family add to the coin jar by bundling the herbs her mother and grandmother sell. Burg Age Level: Middle Grade (9-14) 11-year-old Serafina lives in the rural mountains of Haiti, helping her mother and grandmother with chores and hauling water up to the house each day. She wants to go to school and become a doctor with her best friend, Julie Marie. The day Grace is called from the slave cabins to work in the Big House, Mama makes her promise to keep her eyes down. Burg 4.03 2,430 ratings339 reviews A luminous novel in verse from the author of the Jefferson Cup award winner ALL THE BROKEN PIECES. Burg follows her debut, All the Broken Pieces, with this quieter yet compelling novel in verse about sensitive, ambitious 11-year-old Serafina, who lives in poverty in rural Haiti with her cheerful, compassionate father hardworking, tightlipped mother and wise grandmother, Gogo. From the award-winning author of All the Broken Pieces and Serafinas Promise comes a breathtaking new novel that is her most transcendent and widely accessible work to date.

Serafina's Promise by Ann E. Burg