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Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics

Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

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“Perfect for history buffs, dance enthusiasts, poets, and just about anyone looking for a great story.” — School Library Journal (starred review)

From the Young People’s Poet Laureate Margarita Engle comes a searing novel in verse about the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943.

Thousands of young Navy sailors are pouring into Los Angeles on their way to the front lines of World War II. They are teenagers, scared, longing to feel alive before they have to face the horrors of battle. Hot jazz music spiced with cool salsa rhythms beckons them to dance with the local Mexican American girls, who jitterbug all night before working all day in the canneries. Proud to do their part for the war effort, these Jazz Owl girls are happy to dance with the sailors—until the blazing summer night when racial violence leads to murder.

Suddenly the young white sailors are attacking the girls’ brothers and boyfriends. The cool, loose zoot suits they wear are supposedly the reason for the violence—when in reality the boys are viciously beaten and arrested simply because of the color of their skin.

In soaring images and searing poems, this is the breathtaking story of what became known as the Zoot Suit Riots.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

Margarita Engle, Edel Rodriguez, 2015

Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics

Margarita Engle, Rafael López, 2017

Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba

Margarita Engle, 2009

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

Margarita Engle, 2008

Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck

Margarita Engle, 2011

Singing with Elephants

Margarita Engle, 2022

The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist

Margarita Engle, 2013

The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano

Margarita Engle, Sean Qualls, 2006