When Esperanza and her family arrive in the United States from Cuba, they buy a little house, una casita. It may be small, but they soon prove that there’s room enough to share with a whole community.
“It was a little house. Una casita . . . It was small. It smelled like old wet socks. . . But even though they were far from home, The family was together.”
As Esperanza and her family settle into their new house, they all do their part to make it a home, working multiple jobs and doing chores to pitch in. When Mami’s sister Conchita comes to stay with them, she helps other families by taking care of their children during the day. Together they turn the house into a place where other new immigrants can help one another and feel accepted.
Esperanza is always the first to welcome them, making sure that la casita offers a home for those who don’t have a place to go. It’s a safe place in a new land.
Terry Catasus Jennings first came from Cuba to the U.S. in 1961, when she was twelve years old. With Una Casita de Esperanza, she tells an inspiring, semi-autobiographical story of how immigrants can help each other find their footing in a new country.
An English edition, The Little House of Hope, is also available.
A Bank Street Best Children's Picture Book of the Year in Spanish Una selección del Junior Library Guild A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year
About the Author
Margarita Engle is the Cuban American author of many verse books, including a Newbery Honor winner, The Surrender Tree; a PEN USA Award winner, The Lightning Dreamer; and a verse memoir, Enchanted Air, winner of many awards, including an inaugural Walter Dean Myers Award Honor. Margarita's books have also received three Pura Belpré Awards and four Américas Awards, as well as a Jane Addams Award, International Reading Association Award, and the Charlotte Zolotow Award. In 2017, the Poetry Foundation named her the Young People's Poet Laureate. Margarita grew up in Los Angeles but developed a deep attachment to her mother's homeland during summers with her extended family in Cuba. She was trained as a botanist and agronomist before becoming a full-time poet and novelist.
Raúl Colón was born in New York City in December of 1952 and moved with his parents in the 1960s to Caguas, Puerto Rico, where he studied commercial art. Colón is a versatile and acclaimed illustrator whose work has appeared in important national publications. An award-winning illustrator of over thirty books for children, Colón has received a Golden Kite Award, a Pura Belpré Award, and both a gold and silver medal in The Original Art show. He lives in New City, New York.
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