El Lector

This heart-warming story is about Bella, a 13-year-old girl in Tampa, Florida, in the 1930s. Her grandfather is a lector at a cigar factory, which means he reads fiction, newspapers, and union news to the workers as they roll cigars. Being a lector is an important role in their Cuban American immigrant community. But the hard times of the Depression mean that Bella must go to work in the factory. Her hope of getting the education a lector needs seems impossible.