1. What is the history of the balseros, the people who flee Cuba on rafts and boats? What motivates them to take the terrible risks that they do?

2. How long has Cuba had a communist government? What government did it replace? How did it replace the previous government?

3. What is life like for a fifteen-yearold boy or girl in Cuba? What aspects of that life appear in Jumping off to Freedom?

4. Why are young people sent into farmlands to harvest crops? What is the experience like for them? Are grownups also sent into the farmlands?

5. What property in Cuba does not belong to the government? Why not?

6. Why would the Cuban government want to prevent malcontents like the balseros from leaving Cuba? After all, the refugees in Florida often send American currency to relatives in Cuba, and that currency will find...