Margarita Engle


Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet and author of many award-winning books for children, young adults and adults. Most of Engle's stories are written in verse and are a reflection of her Cuban heritage and her deep appreciation and knowledge of nature. She became the first Latino awarded a Newbery Honor in 2009 for The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom. She was selected by the Poetry Foundation to serve from 2017 to 2019 as the sixth Young People's Poet Laureate. On October 9, 2018, Margarita Engle was announced the winner of the 2019 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature. She was nominated by 2019 NSK Prize jury member Lilliam Rivera. Her 2024 book, Wild Dreamers, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.
WWW margaritaengle.com

Early life

Engle's father was born in Los Angeles, California and her mother in Trinidad, Cuba. Although Engle was born and raised in California, growing up, she spent many summers with her extended family in Cuba. As a child, she was introduced to poetry in Spanish, particularly the works of José Martí.

Career

Engle earned a B.S. from California State Polytechnic University in 1974, an M.S. from Iowa State University in 1977, and nearly completed a doctoral degree in biology from the University of California, Riverside in 1983. Before starting her writing career, Engle was a tenured professor of agronomy at California Polytechnic University. While working on her doctoral degree, she took a seminar in creative writing with Tomás Rivera, and credits this experience with igniting her passion to write. She lives in Central California, where she enjoys helping her husband with his volunteer work for wilderness search and rescue dog training programs.

Awards

Entire body of work
THE POET SLAVE OF CUBA, A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano
THE SURRENDER TREE, Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom
TROPICAL SECRETS, Holocaust Refugees in Cuba
THE FIREFLY LETTERS, A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba
  • 2011 Pura Belpré Honor for author
  • 2011 Américas Award Honor
  • Jane Addams Award Finalist
  • California Book Award Finalist
  • International Reading Association Notable Book for a Global Society
  • NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Book
  • Amelia Bloomer Book
  • TAYSHAS Choice
  • Junior Library Guild Selection
SUMMER BIRDS, The Butterflies of Maria Merian
HURRICANE DANCERS, The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck
  • 2012 Pura Belpré Honor for author
  • ALSC 2012 Notable Children's Book for older readers
  • ALA Best Books for Young Adults nominee
  • Poetry for Children Blog's Top 20 Most Distinctive Books of Poetry 2011
  • 2012 White Ravens List
DRUM DREAM GIRL,
ENCHANTED AIR: TWO CULTURES, TWO WINGS: A MEMOIR
FOREST WORLD ''
  • CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book
  • 2018 Green Earth Book Award
  • Kansas NEA Reading Circle List Intermediate Title
  • Walter Dean Myers Honor Book

Selected works

  • , Terrain.org
  • , Arte Publico Press, 1993,
  • Skywriting, Bantam Books, 1995,
  • , Macmillan, 2009,
  • , Henry Holt & Co., 2010,
  • , Henry Holt & Co., 2010,
  • , Henry Holt & Co., 2011,
  • , Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012,
  • When You Wander, Henry Holt and Co., 2013,
  • The Lightning Dreamer, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 201,
  • Mountain Dog, Henry Holt and Co., 2013,
  • Orangutanka: A Story in Poems, Henry Holt and Co., 2015,
  • Drum Dream Girl, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015,
  • Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir, Simon and Schuster, 2015,
  • Lion Island: Cuba's Warrior of Words, Simon and Schuster, 2017 Dreams from Many Rivers, Henry Holt and Co., 2019 Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2019