Age: 5th-8th grade
Country Setting: Haiti
Tough Issues: Poverty, natural disaster

Eleven-year-old Serafina's one wish is to become a doctor but with her baby brother on the way, Serafina's mother and father ask her to put family first by helping around the house and assisting her mother and grandmother in daily, essential chores. Due to the verse format, the novel reads fast but details felt absent where needed. I can see the literary value of their absence (from Serafina's perspective, surviving a landslide and an earthquake might not allow one to pause and reflect on her surroundings; also, verse can be as much about what is absent as what is there) but I wonder how children will receive the book. Fostering empathy, Serafina's Promise can give children a new appreciation for what they may take for granted, especially education.