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Cameron, Ann.
COLIBRI
New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2003.
IL 5-8, RL 6.2
ISBN 0374315191

(2 booktalks)

Booktalk #1

Colibri.  That's her name.  At least she thinks it is.  She's been with Uncle for eight years now so her memories are dim.  She remembers someone taking her away from her parents on a crowded bus.  And she remembers the man who found her the next day.  He told her to call him Uncle and she has been with him ever since.  They go from town to town throughout Guatemala begging on the streets.  It is not a great life but the only one she knows.  He tells her to be grateful to him for taking care of her for so long.  He tells her to forget her life before.  She is now Rosa.  But down deep she knows.  Her name is Colibri.

Booktalk #2

Who is Rosa? She is not really sure herself. She thinks she is about 12 years old, at least that is what the man she calls Uncle says. When she was four years old, Rosa was kidnapped out of her mother’s arms and Uncle found her. Now they wander throughout Guatemala because Rosa is supposed to find Uncle a treasure according to fortune tellers. Uncle is mean to Rosa, but she is afraid to leave. Rosa remembers a little of her life before “Uncle”: she knows her Mayan name is Tzunun and her nickname is Colibri which means hummingbird. What is this treasure? Will Rosa, or Colibri, be able to be free from Uncle?  (Melissa Bowman, Melissa.Bowman@pisd.edu, Armstrong Middle School)

SUBJECTS:     Kidnapping -- Fiction.
                        Mayas -- Fiction.
                        Indians of Central America -- Guatemala -- Fiction.
                        Guatemala -- Fiction.

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