Read La Edad de Oro in Spanishwith every sentence explained

La Edad de Oro by José Martí was first published in 1889. In Passage you read the full text in the original Spanish, marked beginner and filed under children.

A magazine for the children of America, written almost single-handedly by a poet in exile.

In 1889, from New York, the Cuban writer and patriot José Martí launched a monthly magazine for young readers across Latin America. It lasted only four issues, and Martí filled them himself with stories, poems, history and lively pages about how people live and work around the world.

Inside are "Tres héroes", on Bolívar, San Martín and Hidalgo; "Meñique", the tale of a tiny youngest brother who brings a giant to the king; the tender "La muñeca negra"; and the poem "Los zapaticos de rosa", which generations of children know by heart. There are also visits to the Paris Exposition and to ancient Indian ruins, a history of humanity told through its houses, and even the story of the spoon and fork.

Martí speaks to children as equals, urging them to be honest, curious and brave. The Golden Age is still a classic in Cuba and far beyond.

Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in Spanish. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:

• a natural translation of that exact sentence,
• a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
• the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
• all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.

It's marked beginner, so it's a good first whole book if you know the basics of Spanish and want something you can finish. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.