When the Slave Esperança Garcia Wrote a Letter

Sonia Rosa brings the story of "the courageous slave who wrote the first letter of petition in Afro-Brazilian Brazil" to a wider audience. The narration, primarily told in first person and in present tense, confronts slavery's inhumanity head-on, in an age-appropriate manner. Recounting living with her husband and children on a cotton farm owned by Jesuit priests, Esperanca Garcia says, "I can't lie. The priests did not treat my family so badly." She adds, "Yet I can't say I was happy, because for a slave, a happy life isn't possible." Sent away (with her two younger children) to work as a cook, Garcia suffered from being separated from her family and having a cruel "new master." Luciana Justiniani Hees's illustrations make use of intricate patterns and bold colors to immerse readers in Garcia's world. The field landscapes are particularly striking, resembling carefully constructed quilts-chaotic but beautiful patchworks of texture and color. After Garcia sends her letter to the Governor, asking to be reunited with her family, she-and readers-wait for a reply. Every day she can "think of nothing else. The answer could arrive at any moment." At the story's end, she is still waiting for a response. (In the afterword, readers discover that it is still unknown whether Garcia's letter was ever answered. It is gratifying to learn that after a historian discovered Garcia's letter in 1979, the Brazilian state of Piaui began celebrating Black Consciousness Day every September 6th-the day Esperanca Garcia wrote her letter.)

This is an important story of a slave woman who learned to read and write from Jesuit priests and later became the first African Brazilian to pen a letter of petition to the governor in an attempt to escape her master's abuse and be reunited with her family. A sometimes-unnatural first-person narrative switches suddenly and awkwardly to the third person; Hees's stylized, bold illustrations are, however, striking.