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Coming Soon

August 2023

October 2023

Spring 2024

Now Available

Classroom Activities


Classroom activities to support teachers and Common Core State Standards based on Margarita Engle's books.

Poetry Teaching Tips

Young People's Poet Laureate Margarita Engle offers poetry teaching tips, and a bilingual reading.

Young People's Poet Laureate Margarita Engle offers a bilingual STEM poetry reading for children.

PBS Teachers Lounge: Let Poetry Flow

Margarita Engle wrote a guest blog for PBS Teachers Lounge, on inspiring students expression through poetry.

Young People's Poet Laureate Podcast:

Margarita Engle on the subject of her poetry, and her message to young readers.

Jazz Owls

Margarita visited The Van Show to talk about her books, Jazz Owls and The Flying Girl, and shared her childhood stories.

Listen to Margarita's radio interview about Jazz Owls, for the Takeaway (WNYC).

The Flying Girl

Download the curriculum guide, based on The Flying Girl: How Aida de Acosta Learned to Soar.

Miguel’s Brave Knight

Download the curriculum guide, based on Miguel’s Brave Knight, Young Cervantes and His Dream of Don Quixote.

Poetry Mosaic

In honor of #NationalPoetryMonth, Bookology has invited authors to read their original poetry and is compiling the recordings into a mosaic of poets and poetry, with a new author highlighted each day in April 2017.

Lion Island

Download the curriculum guide, based on Lion Island.

Video recording of Global Read webinar featuring Lion Island

The Sky Painter

Download teaching guide, with STEAM integration, based on The Sky Painter.

Orangutanka

Download teaching guide based on Orangutanka

Focus On Cuba

Focus On, an article series on School Library Journal, featured books and interview with Margarita Engle.The topic for the April 2016 article is on Cuba.

Audio resources at TeachingBooks.net

20th Anniversary of the Pura Belpre Awards features the following recordings of Margarita's 'Meet-the-Author Book Reading' for:

Teaching For Change

Teaching For Change featured The Surrender Tree as one of the books to teach children about race and to help students understand current events on Cuba.

Enchanted Air

Download discussion question and curriculum guide based on Enchanted Air.

Teaching for Change featured Enchanted Air as one of its recommended book for middle school and young adults non-fiction.

Vamos a Leer Featured Title

Drum Dream Girl

Download discussion question and teaching guide based on Drum Dream Girl.

Scholastic's Instructor magazine featured Drum Dream Girl in its annual summer reading list for students, and featured on the Washington Post education blog

2015 Blog tour schedule for The Sky Painter

April 20 @ Library Fanatic

April 21 @ Kid Lit Frenzy

April 22 @ Unleashing Readers

April 23 @ 5 Minutes for Books

April 24 @ Teach Mentor Texts

April 25 @ Booking Mama

April 27 @ Sharpread

April 28 @ The Children's Book Review

April 29 @ Cracking The Cover

April 30 @ A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust

May 1 @ Archimedes Notebook

Download The Sky Painter activity kit

Diverse Verse

Article link to January issue of BookLinks that features multicultural literature. Few of Margarita's books are featured in the annotated bibliography list.

NCTE CLA Master Class: Poetry Across the Curriculum

Article link to Children’s Literature Assembly of NCTE Master Class on Poetry across the Curriculum, with focus on social studies. Including resources on social studies poetry books, teaching tips and website. The Surrender Tree is featured as one of the poetry books resources.

Poetry and Social Justice

Article link to resources and books discussion on poetry and social justice. The Poet Slave of Cuba, The Firefly Letters, The Lightning Dreamer and Silver People are featured as books suggested for older students on history.

First Book's Authors and Illustrators in Action Program

Margarita has joined First Book's Authors and Illustrators in Action Program, which can be accessed by schools, libraries, and clubs in low income areas, to receive free books. To apply, go to: http://www.firstbook.org/margaritaengle

Open A World of Possible

A link to a free book and educators' guide about authors' childhood reading experiences. Open A World of Possible is a collection of texts by children's authors, educators and public figures about their own experiences with reading. The 256 pages book can be downloaded for free at http://www.scholastic.com/worldofpossible/.
Margarita's contribution is in the section on imagination.

Lesson Ideas and Learning Activities from Silver People

New South Wales Teachers Federation offers some teaching tools from Silver People. Click here to read the complete review and find out their suggested learning ideas for discussion and classroom activities inspired by this book.

Silver People Discussion Guide

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt made a teaching/discussion guide for Silver People.

Margarita Engle on Writing Historical Fiction

Interview on Margarita's writing process and inspiration for Silver People, Straight from the Source.

Teaching Tips from Lightning Dreamer

Latinos In KidLit provided some teaching tips from The Lightning Dreamer "...is an ideal jumping off point for exploring a wide array of subjects suggested in the novel. These range from colonialism, to New World slavery and racism, to patriarchal societies and the history of women’s political movements..."
Click here to read the complete article.

Summer Reading Program

Firefly Letters and The Wild Book are included in Latinas for Latino Lit (L4LL) 10-week summer reading program beginning June 1, 2014. Follow this link for more information.

The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science

Some of Margarita's poems are included in the new Poetry Friday Anthology for Science.

The Surrender Tree

The Zinn Education Project featured The Surrender Tree as recommended reading for Black History Month.

Vamos a Leer created a bilingual teaching guide for the dual language edition of The Surrender Tree/El árbol de la rendición. Click on the following links for:

The Lightning Dreamer

Lightning Dreamer, recommended by Rose Reissman.

Lightning Dreamer, a Classroom Connection interview by Caroline Starr Rose.

The Lightning Dreamer is a Teaching for Change 2013 Favorite books.

Selected as National Council for the Social Sciences Poetry Mentor Text for Global Connections

Mountain Dog

Mountain Dog, recommended by Rose Reissman.

Mountain Dog review with teacher notes.

The paperback of Mountain Dog will be a selection at Scholastic Book Fairs

Hurricane Dancers

Hurricane Dancers, a recommended resource for teaching about the European conquest of the Americas, by Zinn Education Project.

Dear Students Interview

After Skyping with high school ESL and advanced placement Spanish students, Margarita Engle sent e-mailed answers to the following snail-mailed questions:

Q: What kind of books do you read?
A: I read all different sorts of books, but I especially love poetry.

Q: When do your best ideas come to you?
A: I am a “morning person.” I like to wake up early, and do my writing in the mornings.

Q: Can you tell me some methods to improve writing skills?
A: Practice! Just as dancers, musicians, and athletes have to rehearse and train, writers also need practice. Don’t expect perfection. That way you won’t get discouraged, and it will be creative and fun.

... and more! Read the complete questions and answers (pdf file)

Book Trailers and Videos

Book trailer for The Sky Painter by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Aliona Bereghici

Download The Sky Painter activity kit

Book trailer for Orangutanka by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Renee Kurilla

Book trailer for Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Rafael López

Margarita's video interview for Mountain Dog as a finalist for the Texas Bluebonnet Award (Cinematographer: Marshall W. Johnson)

The official book trailer for Tiny Rabbit's Big Wish