What is Margarita Engle reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Margarita Engle, author of Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots.

Her entry begins:

This is an unusual moment for me, because I’m only reading a few books, instead of many. It’s also unusual because none of them are children’s books. I seem to have entered a summer of grownup books, even though I’m usually surrounded by piles of published and advanced review copies of works for young readers. I’m sure this strangely adult reading phase will pass soon, because I go to the library several times per week, and I visit every bookstore in town almost as often. (I’ve never ordered any book online. I prefer to support bookstores, especially the independent ones.)

There There by Tommy Orange
Wow! What a powerful and beautifully written novel about the urban Native American community in Oakland, California. I love the way chapters are in different voices, all so different and unique, yet united by heritage and a page-turning...[read on]

About Jazz Owls, from the publisher:

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

In soaring images and powerful poems, this is the breathtaking story of what became known as the Zoot Suit Riots as only Margarita Engle could tell it.

Visit Margarita Engle's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Margarita Engle & Maggi and Chance.

My Book, The Movie: The Lightning Dreamer.

My Book, The Movie: Mountain Dog.

The Page 69 Test: Silver People.

The Page 99 Test: Enchanted Air.

The Page 69 Test: Lion Island.

Writers Read: Margarita Engle.

--Marshal Zeringue