Silver people: voices from the Panama Canal

One hundred years ago, the world celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, which connected the worlds two largest oceans and signaled Americas emergence as a global superpower.

It was a miracle, this path of water where a mountain had stoodand creating a miracle is no easy thing.

Thousands lost their lives, and those who survived worked under the harshest conditions for only a few silver coins a day.From the young silver people whose back-breaking labor built the Canal to the denizens of the endangered rainforest itself, this is the story of one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, as only Newbery Honor-winning author Margarita Engle could tell it.