Double Bass Blues

Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics

Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln

Light for All

All the Way to Havana

Orangutanka: A Story in Poems

A Song of Frutas

Singing with Elephants

“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

Double Bass Blues

Andrea J. Loney, Rudy Gutierrez, 2019

Bravo!: Poems About Amazing Hispanics

Margarita Engle, Rafael López, 2017

Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln

Rafael López, Margarita Engle, 2019

Light for All

Margarita Engle, Raúl Colón, 2021

All the Way to Havana

Mike Curato, Margarita Engle, 2017

Orangutanka: A Story in Poems

Margarita Engle, Renee Kurilla, 2015

A Song of Frutas

Sara Palacios, Margarita Engle, 2021

Singing with Elephants

Margarita Engle, 2022