Bookverdict.com

Gr 9 Up—Based on a true story, and told from the protagonist's point of view, The Queen of Water follows a seven-year-old indígena who was taken from her family in the rural Ecuadoran Andes mountains to be a servant in an urban home. Confused, afraid, and alone, Virginia accepts her captors as parents and loves their children. The prejudice of these mestizos, or middle-class natives, speeds the girl's...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Virginia is only seven when she is "given" to a mestizo couple and moves from her village of indígenas in Ecuador to a house in a town. There she is expected to cook, clean, and care for the couple's child, and she grows into this servitude believing she is part of the family. But her natural spiritedness grows, too, as she comes of age and insists on becoming her own person: learning to read, making friends, and finally making harrowing attempts to break away from the "family" that is abusing her. When she fin...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

Virginia is only seven when she's "given" to a <i>mestizo</i> couple. She's expected to cook and clean for them and to care f...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

The Queen of Water is a deeply moving autobiographical portrait of María Virginia Farinango’s childhood and her struggle, as an unpaid servant, for education, selfhood, and freedom. Through Virginia’s story, the novel addresses and dramatizes the economic and political plight of Ecuador’s indígenas—natives whom the country’s mestizos, or Spanish descendents, treat as second-class citizens. Virginia’s parents send her to her mestizo employers with the understanding that she’ll be paid a thousand sucres a month and occasionally return...Log In or Sign Up to Read More