Through the Antillean Sea.

A paper boat sails the Antilles Sea. The storms of time have not been able to divert it and the waters of the Caribbean always guide it to safe harbor. This book-boat, written by the National Poet, continues to be one of those proposals of essential reading if we are talking about poetics for children in Cuban literature.

The first port? The heart of Sapito and Sapón, two friends who will accompany us along this journey of magic and reality in the Antillean environment. «What straight streets in Quimbombó! What clean houses made of cotton!» Nicolás Guillén draws from the musicality of his verses a landscape only visible to those who know how to look with the eyes of a child.

46 years after its publication, this volume invites us to discover riddles and songs of high flight in a world of light and freedom, without slaves, where the hummingbird and the spring raise their voices to celebrate life.

Offshore we spot another vessel. From the Granma yacht, a dreamy crew greets us, while the author invokes that name and almost touches his forehead.

The wind blows in our favor, the moorings are secured and to the rhythm of the son we disembark in Angola, where the captain of our sailboat repeats loudly his Cuban verses dedicated to that land in an effort to chase away loneliness.

During the trip, the dove, the reed and the squirrel trace our steps and Agueda from Ecuador sends us a golden flower, a kiss, the jungle, the plain; just before the poet seals the trip with his fable, to remind us that only the bravest can triumph.

Then, with our souls overflowing, we weigh anchor, raise our sails back home and from there we embrace the certainty that, through the Antillean Sea, a paper boat never stops sailing to infinity.

Written by Jeidi Suárez García.