Parents' Guide to Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

Parents need to know that Newbery Honor author Margarita Engle's Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings is a memoir told in poetry that recalls Engle's life as a Cuban American girl whose family is devastated by the unraveling of Cuban and American relations in the 1960s. Margarita finds bullets while visiting Cuba after the revolution, and she later learns that one of her relatives has been sent to a forced-labor camp. As the Cuban Missile Crisis intensifies, Margarita and her American classmates prepare for bombings and "poisoned air." Additionally, Margarita hangs out with a wild group of girls and goes to a house where everyone else drinks and smokes. Her older friends brag about using weed, meth, and heroin; get pregnant; and have babies. Eleven-year-old Margarita is kissed by an older boy, which she doesn't like. She learns through traveling -- to her mother's home country of Cuba, and to Mexico and Europe -- that there is both beauty and suffering. She tells readers in an author's note, "Travel teaches compassion." Fast-moving narrative poetry makes Enchanted Air a good choice for reluctant readers, and the author's unique perspective breathes life into a piece of history that may be unknown to many tweens and teens. There's also a time line at the end of the book that helps readers fill in the blanks about historical events. Enchanted Air won the 2016 Pura Belpre Author Award honoring a Latino writer whose children's book best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience.