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Margarita Engle's Latest Book

Newest Release

  • Bibliography:
    32 Books
  • First Book:
    June 1995
  • Latest Book:
    July 2025
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Book List in Order: 32 titles



  • Visiting the Cuban half-brother from whom she was separated at birth, Carmen is astonished to learn that Camilo has been captured while fleeing to America with a mysterious package that contains a 500-year-old secret. Reprint....



    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    The Surrender Tree / El árbol de la rendición is a lyrical, Newbery Honor-winning history in poems, and this bilingual edition has the Spanish and English text available in one book.It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still ...



  • Daniel has escaped Nazi Germany with nothing but a desperate dream that he might one day find his parents again. But that golden land called New York has turned away his ship full of refugees, and Daniel finds himself in Cuba. As the tropical isl...



  • Quebrado has been traded from pirate ship to ship in the Caribbean Sea for as long as he can remember. The sailors he toils under call him el quebradohalf islander, half outsider, a broken one. Now the pirate captain Bernardino de Talavera uses Quebr...



  • Fefa struggles with words. She has word blindness, or dyslexia, and the doctor says she will never read or write. Every time she tries, the letters jumble and spill off the page, leaping and hopping away like bullfrogs. How will she ever understand t...



  • “I find it so easy to forget / that I’m just a girl who is expected / to live / without thoughts.” Opposing slavery in Cuba in the nineteenth century was dangerous. The most daring abolitionists were poets who veiled their work in metaphor. Of ...



  • When you wander down a leafy path I can smell your invisible trail . . . This cozy story gently teaches children what to do if they lose their way, and reassures them that a search-and-rescue dog can find them wherever they are. And once a chi...



  • When Tony’s mother is sent to jail, he is sent to stay with a great uncle he has never met in Sierra Nevada. It is a daunting move -- Tony’s new world bears no semblance to his previous one. But slowly, against a remote and remarkable backdrop, t...



  • As the Panama Canal turns one hundred, Newbery Honor winner Margarita Engle tells the story of its creation in this powerful new YA historical novel in verse. In 1914, the world celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, which connected the worl...






  • Tiny rabbit dreams of growing as big as the forest and as tall as the trees, yet no matter how hard he wishes, he stays the same small size. But in a jungle filled with beasts both big and small, perhaps being tiny is just right! Inspired by the rhyt...



  • All the orangutans are ready for a nap in the sleepy depths of the afternoon . . . all except one. This little orangutan wants to dance! A hip-hop, cha-cha-cha dance full of somersaults and cartwheels. But who will dance with her? Written in bold ...



  • In a haunting yet hopeful novel in verse, award-winning author Margarita Engle tells the story of Antonio Chuffat, a young man of African, Chinese, and Cuban descent who became a champion of civil rights. Asia, Africa, Europe -- Antonio Chuffat’...



  •             Award winning author Margarita Engle brings a tale of history mixed with a touch of fantasy.

    “When Mamacita chose to call me Estrellita, / it was her way of imagining a little bit / of starlight, deep down in that caver...



  • A powerful novel in verse about an early women’s rights pioneer and the journey to Cuba that transformed her life. When Fredrika Bremer asked the Swedish Consulate to find her a quiet home in the Cuban countryside, she expected a rustic thatched...



  • So we purr, cara cara, and we glide, taka taka, and we zoom, zoom, ZOOM! Together, a boy and his parents drive to the city of Havana, Cuba, in their old family car. Along the way, they experience the sights and sounds of the streets―neighbors t...



  • From award-winning author Margarita Engle comes a lively middle grade novel in verse that tells the story of a Cuban-American boy who visits his family’s village in Cuba for the first time -- and meets a sister he didn’t know he had. Edver isn...



  • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra finds refuge from his difficult childhood by imagining the adventures of a brave but clumsy knight. This fictionalized first-person biography in verse of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra follows the early years of the chil...



  • 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 teenag...



  • It's the Festival of Lights in Nepal, and today is the day to honor dogs! Brothers Alu and Bhalu wander the streets of Kathmandu, passing by twirling kites and bamboo swings, looking for a dog to feed. But as night falls, their task begins to feel ho...






  • Winner of the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book In soaring words and stunning illustrations, Margarita Engle and Rafael López tell the story of Teresa Carreño, a child prodigy who played piano for Abraham...



  • From award-winning poet Margarita Engle comes Dreams from Many Rivers, an middle grade verse history of Latinos in the United States, told through many voices, and featuring illustrations by Beatriz Gutierrez Hernandez.From Juana Briones and Juan Pon...



  • From acclaimed author Margarita Engle comes a gorgeous new novel in verse about Rubén Darío, the Nicaraguan poet and folk hero who initiated the literary movement of Modernismo. As a little boy, Rubén Darío loved to listen to his great uncle, ...



  • Acclaimed author Margarita Engle tells a “deeply felt and engrossing” (Horn Book Magazine) story of love in a time of hunger inspired by her own family’s struggles during a dark period in Cuba’s history.The people of Cuba are living in el per...



  • From Pura Belpré Award"winning author Margarita Engle comes a lively, rhythmic picture book about a little girl visiting her grandfather who is a pregonero -- a singing street vendor in Cuba -- and helping him sell his frutas.When we visit mi abue...



  • A lyrical and unifying picture book that “will inspire young readers” and “magnificently showcases the immigrant experience” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) in America from Newbery Honoree Margarita Engle and award-winning illustrator Raúl ...



  • An inspiring coming-of-age story told in prose and “spare, lyrical” verse (The Horn Book Magazine) from award-winning author Margarita Engle about a girl falling in love for the first time while finding the courage to protest for women’s right ...



  • A powerful novel in verse from Newbery and Pura Belpré Award-winning author Margarita Engle about the friendship between a young girl and the poet Gabriela Mistral that leads to healing and hope for both of them.Cuban-born eleven-year-old Orio...



  • This gorgeously romantic contemporary novel-in-verse from award-winning author Margarita Engle tells the “inspiring and hopeful” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) love story of two teens fighting for climate action and human rights.Winged beings a...



  • A joyful picture book from acclaimed author Margarita Engle about a young girl and her community celebrating the arrival of the water man who visits weekly to distribute water to the village.Water days are busy days, grateful, laughing, thirsty days....






  • Longlisted for the National Book AwardIn this stirring young adult novel-in-verse from award-winning author Margarita Engle, love and conservation intertwine as two teens go on a “transformative journey celebrating the power of overcoming personal ...



  • Inspired by stories from her mother’s childhood, acclaimed author Margarita Engle and award-winning artist John Parra have crafted a vibrant picture book about a young girl and her family who find joy in the music flowing from outside their window....



  • From award-winning author Margarita Engle comes an inspiring and luminous love story told in verse about childhood friends, once lost and now reconnected, and their fight to protect endangered animals.Every day, Vida reads to the creatures at the wil...


Award-Winning Books by Margarita Engle

Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreno Played the Piano for President Lincoln
2020 Pura Belpre Award -- Illustrator
Hurricane Dancers
2012 Americas Award for Children & Young Adult Literature -- Children/Young Adult
The Lightning Dreamer
2014 PEN Literary Award -- Children/Young Adult
Silver People
2015 Americas Award for Children & Young Adult Literature -- Children/Young Adult
The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom
2009 Americas Award for Children & Young Adult Literature -- Children/Young Adult
2009 Children's Book Committee Award -- Poetry
2009 Jane Addams Children's Book Award -- Books for Older Children
2009 Pura Belpre Award -- Author
Tropical Secrets
2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award -- Teen


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Margarita Engle has published 32 books.

The next book by Margarita Engle, Island Creatures, will be published in July 2025.

The first book by Margarita Engle, Skywriting, was published in June 1995.

No. Margarita Engle does not write books in series.