Colibrí

for ages 10 to 14

Moss and bright grasses glistened around the spring. The earth smelled as if it was singing.
I scooped up water in my hands and drank.
We ate our last pieces of dry bread. I shook the crumbs out of my shawl, folded it into a square, and put it on my head to shade my eyes.
“Let’s go, Rosa,” Uncle said.
He always called me Rosa. My real name, Tzunún, was a secret I had almost forgotten.--from Colibrí

Drawing by Ana Juan for back and front covers

At age four, the Mayan girl nicknamed Colibrí--"Hummingbird"--is kidnapped from a crowded bus and a Guatemalan ex-soldier and wandering beggar becomes her rescuer. He renames the girl Rosa and tells her to call him Uncle and says that perhaps her parents abandoned her on purpose; maybe they didn't have the means to take care of her.

Uncle consults fortune tellers; they predict that Rosa will lead him to a treasure big enough to last him all his life. He keeps the girl and in his way, takes care of her.

Rosa has turned twelve or maybe even thirteen, but no treasure has been found. Uncle is angry and desperate, nearly ready to give up both the girl and his hopes. He takes her to one last fortune teller, Celestina Tuc, an old Mayan lady who divines the future using the ancient Mayan calendar.

Uncle doesn't realize it, but Celestina is no ordinary fortune teller: she's a woman who not only reads the future, she creates it. With prayers and predictons, but more important, loyalty and love, Celestina creates a new future for Rosa.

Click to see notes for teachers.

Available as a Random House audio book; and in Spanish by Scholastic, Inc.

Colibrí is:
A Junior Literary Guild Selection
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Editor's Choice
An American Library Association Notable Book
A Notable Book for a Global Society Award, International Reading Association

"...an almost hypnotic intensity..."--Publisher's Weekly

"...heartbreakingly ingenuous voice... Readers will ache with [Tzunún's] longing for love and her need to claim her own individual humanity. Painful, beautiful, and ultimately triumphant."--Kirkus Review

"The taut, chilling suspense and the treasure hunt will keep readers flying through the pages, but it's Cameron's beautiful language and Rosa's larger identity quest that makes this novel extraordinary." --Starred, Booklist

"Cameron layers her compelling story with vivid descriptions of setting and weaves into the narrative the complexities inherent in the blending of Mayan and ladino cultures and relgious practices...Well-written and engrossing." --Starred, School Library Journal

"Colibri takes us on a journey, almost an impossible journey to imagine. We begin with someone in darkness who doesn't yet see the darkness around her.
And then step by, and only through her steps, with her, we are startled to discover the light. It's a necessary and empowering journey for the young in all of us to take. How wonderful that we have the opportunity to do it through Ms. Cameron's book."--Jacqueline Kim, actress

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