Author: Jane Yolen
Illustrator: David Shannon
Format: Paperback
Published: Harcourt, 1992

A Taino boy living on an island - now San Salvador in the Bahamas - describes Columbus' arrival. Having never seen Europeans before, the Taino see their light skin and bright clothes and think they must have come from the sky. The Taino and the Spaniards exchange gifts, and the Taino host a feast, a hopeful, friendly affair. But the Spaniards are not interested in an equal friendship. "We were patted upon the head as a child pats a yellow dog. We were smiled at with many white teeth, a serpent's smile." Taken by the Spaniards as a slave, the narrator, a powerful swimmer, escapes to another island. Now an old man, he recounts the destruction of his culture as a result of the Spanish arrival. "So it was we lost our lands to the strangers from the sky. We gave our souls to their gods. We took their speech into our mouths, forgetting our own. Our sons and daughters became their sons and daughters, no longer true humans, no longer ours." An Author's Note includes more factual information about the effect of the Spaniards on native populations.