[Excerpt] Morning Star Horse/El caballo Lucero by Margarita Engle

Margarita Engle is well-known for her historical verse novels for young readers, all of which have garnered her numerous awards. In the wake of the recent US election, she penned a powerful personal essay citing the importance of bridging past and present as her motivation for writing about history. Her realistic fiction works have brought forgotten Cuban heroes like Juan Francisco Manzano and Millo Castro Zaldarriaga back from the margins of memory.

Now, Engle is adding fantasy to her oeuvre. Her forthcoming bilingual middle grade novel, Morning Star Horse/El caballo Lucero, is a historical fantasy about Cuban children at San Diego’s Raja Yoga Academy. In these pages, Engle shines a light on the much overlooked true story of the late-twentieth-century Lomaland Theosophical community which recruited uneducated Cuban children for its experimental school, including the "famous eleven" Cuban child detainees at Ellis Island. Engle, who was born and lives in the United States but spent childhood summers with relatives in Cuba, also draws on her childhood love of horses and folklore. Scheduled for January 2017, the book will be published by HBE Publishing, based in the author's hometown of Clovis, California and described by Engle as an "innovative small publisher." Here is the description from the book's jacket:

"When Mamacita chose to call me Estrellita, / it was her way of imagining a little bit / of starlight, deep down in that cavern / where only rare streaks of day or night / could reach--now, Lucero and I will be / Morning Star and Little Star, / a lit-from-within racing team!"

A young girl stricken with rickets and her mother face the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, the challenges of a new century and innovative teachers. Dreams realized and dreams crushed exploring the freedoms only a magical horse can offer.

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

Engle is an Anansesem advisory board member and we are thrilled to exclusively share this excerpt from the book's opening.

Morning Star Horse/El caballo Lucero

MARGARITA ENGLE | 10 MINS

© HBE Publishing 2017
Translated by Alexis Romany

About the Author

Margarita Engle is the Cuban-American author of The Surrender Tree, which received the first Newbery Honor ever awarded to a Latino. Her other verse novels have received the PEN USA Award, and multiple Pura Belpré and Américas Awards. Her verse memoir, Enchanted Air, is a Pura Belpré winner and YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award finalist. Books for younger children include Drum Dream Girl, The Sky Painter and Mountain Dog. Her 2016 books are Lion Island: Cuba’s Warrior of Words, a young adult verse novel about Antonio Chuffat, a hero of the Chinese- African freedom struggle in 19th century Cuba (Atheneum), and Morning Star Horse/El Caballo Lucero, a bilingual, magic realistic middle grade historical verse novel (HBE Publishers). She lives in central California with her husband and his wilderness search and rescue dog.

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[Excerpt] Dancing in the Rain by Lynn Joseph

Back in August, Jamaican independent publisher Blue Banyan Books (formerly Blue Moon Publishing) released Dancing in the Rain, Américas Award winning Trinbagonian author Lynn Joseph's third young adult novel. Here is the publisher's description:

Twelve year-old Elizabeth is no normal girl. With an imagination that makes room for mermaids and magic in everyday life, she lives every moment to the fullest. Yet her joyful world crumbles around her when two planes bring down the Twin Towers and tear her family apart. Thousands of miles away, yet still touched by this tragedy, Elizabeth is swimming in a sea of loss. She finally finds hope when she meets her kindred spirit in 8 year-old Brandt and his 13 year-old brother, Jared.

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[Excerpt] Lion Island by Magarita Engle

Last week, Atheneum released Lion Island: Cuba's Warrior of Words, award-winning Cuban-American author Margarita Engle's eighteenth book for young readers. Here is the publisher's description:

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’s ancestors clashed and blended on the beautiful island of Cuba. Yet for most Cubans in the nineteenth century, life is anything but beautiful. The country is fighting for freedom from Spain. Enslaved Africans and nearly-enslaved Chinese indentured servants are forced to work long, backbreaking hours in the fields.

So Antonio feels lucky to have found a good job as a messenger, where his richly blended cultural background is an asset. Through his work he meets Wing, a young Chinese fruit seller who barely escaped the anti-Asian riots in San Francisco, and his sister Fan, a talented singer. With injustice all around them, the three friends are determined that violence will not be the only way to gain liberty.

Around the book's release date, reports surfaced that the Cuban government is blocking text messages containing words such as "democracy," "human rights," and "hunger strike," words that, in the Communist nation, often signal political dissidence. Engle, who has spoken often and eloquently about the power of words to heal and liberate, now brings us a historical YA verse novel of timely relevance, bringing light to bear on Cuba's decades-long human rights struggle and the role words play in documenting stories and shaping political landscapes. Enjoy this excerpt from the novel's opening.

Lion Island: Cuba's Warrior of Words

MARGARITA ENGLE | 5 MINS

© Atheneum Books for Young Readers
2016

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About the Author

Summer Edward is the Managing Editor and Kids Editor here at Anansesem. Her writing and art have been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. Her home on the web is www.summeredward.com.

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[Excerpt] Coming to England by Floella Benjamin

Revisiting the classic children's book memoir twenty years later.




A few years ago, I had the honor of speaking with Baroness Floella Benjamin, OBE via telephone for a two-part interview Anansesem ran in our May 2012 issue. It was a conversation I will never forget. We talked at length about her books for young people and her work championing causes close to her heart: children's rights; diversity and inclusion; young people's online safety. One of the things I remember most about that talk is the emotion in Benjamin's voice as she spoke about her experiences as a black immigrant child during England's "Windrush era". Decades after setting off on a ship to a new land, that classic immigrant's journey still informs the person Benjamin is; indeed, it has shaped her into the outspoken advocate for immigrant children that we know her as today.

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