by Katherine Paterson
Katherine Paterson is a doyenne of children’s literature, and she became interested in the history of the 1961 national literacy campaign in Cuba because of a friendship with Senator Patrick Leahy’s sister Mary, who ran an adult literacy program in Vermont. My friend Rozanna reminded me of this young adult novel before our recent trip to Cuba, and it became my “read for the road” on that trip in January. It’s a pretty quick and easy way to get a good picture of that chapter in history, along with the documentary Maestra produced by Catherine Murphy. The film contains a lot of historical footage along with interviews of women who participated in the campaign as teenagers; I was able to find it on Kanopy, which is a great streaming source probably available through your public library.