Without any doubt "Raining over Havana" by Julio Travieso Serrano is a faithful portrait of Cuban life in the 1990's. Here we may find characters who move on the margins of Havana society: prostitutes, pimps, procurers, all of them marked by pain and despair but, at the same time, full of love, passion, humor and irony, and always fighting to subsist. Their existential conflicts and psychology have been carefully delineated by the author. Havana, dirty, chaotic, but always beautiful, impregnated by magic and mystery, could well be the main character of this novel that will definitely entrap readers, because from its initial pages they will want to know whether pain or love, life or death triumphs.

The artistic Ernestina and the analytical Enriquito use their ingenuity to save a herd of wild horses and stop an evil landowner from spoiling their Cuban village.

When Julian's parents make the heartbreaking decision to send him and his two brothers away from Cuba to Miami via the Pedro Pan operation, the boys are thrust into a new world where bullies run rampant and it's not always clear how best to protect themselves. 90 Miles to Havana is a 2011 Pura Belpre Honor Book for Narrative and a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.